


Come A Little Closer

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Angst, Eventual Smut, M/M, Sexual Tension, Slow Build, there will be character deaths
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-21
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-15 17:21:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 49,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/852060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the majority of the North American government become part of the Human-Wolf Alliance, they finally gain enough power to force a law that allows them to arrange marriages between humans and werewolves in order to keep the peace between the two groups. Stiles doesn't have a problem with this rule, not really. Not until he's partnered with Derek Hale, that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Before

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where this came from, but I couldn't get it out of my head once I thought of it, so I decided to write it. I hope you all enjoy reading this story as much as I have enjoyed writing it and plotting the entire thing inside my head before I even made the conscious decision to actually sit down and write it out. :)

Stiles remembers when he was younger, about six or seven, asking his parents how they met. They looked at him funnily at first, as if he was perhaps too young to understand such things, but his mother smiled and shook her head fondly nevertheless. She told him a tale of a young woman who moved into Beacon Hills at the timid age of twenty-two, seeking a new, quiet life for herself. She told him how she sought to reinvent herself after a bad breakup with her boyfriend of three years, a statement which earns a scowl from his father. But then he’s interjecting, explaining that she was speeding one night. He wasn’t the sheriff of the town yet, but he was still an officer with high ranks, so when he saw her pushing forty in a twenty-five zone, it was only his duty to pull her over.

“When she rolled down her window, she was crying,” his dad told him, a sad smile playing at his lips, as if the thought of his mother crying was the worst thing in the world. “I asked her what was wrong, and she just shook her head and wiped her eyes and looked me straight in the eyes and said, ‘Was I doing something wrong, Officer?’ And I swear to god, she was trying to flirt her way out of a ticket with mascara streaks on her cheeks.” His dad laughed uproariously at that, causing his mom to smile, a blush rising to her cheeks.

“And it worked, too,” she had told Stiles. “I still don’t know if it was the crying or the flirting, but he let me out of the ticket. He just gave me a warning. I wouldn’t have done it, but I had just moved, and I was short on money. I really had no other choice.”

His father rolls his eyes at that. “Anyway, I didn’t see her again for at least a month. But I couldn’t get her out of my head. It’s like having a song stuck in your head that you really don’t like. You wanted to stop thinking of it, but you just can’t. So when I saw her walk into the café that I went to everyday during my break, it was as if an angel had stepped in front of me. I went to talk to her, but I was so nervous, I just kept choking on my own words. I spilt my coffee all over.”

“Thank god it was iced,” his mother added with a wink, a teasing smile playing at her lips.

“And I followed her into the bathroom when she went to clean up,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “And I apologized thoroughly and rambled about god knows what, and she finally made me shut up. Then she asked me, ‘Aren’t you the officer who pulled me over the other day?’ And I just stared at her for a second, and then I started laughing, and I couldn’t stop laughing. When I finally calmed down, she smiled and asked me on a date, and I told her no.”

“You told her _no_?” Stiles pipes up for the first time, eyes going wide as saucers like this was the biggest sin any person could ever commit. “But I thought you _wanted_ to date her!”

“Oh, he did,” his mother tells Stiles reassuringly. “The asshole just likes to work people up, apparently. I was absolutely heartbroken. It had been two months since my breakup, and I wasn’t really ready to date anyone new, but there was something… different about your father, something intriguing. But I hadn’t dated in a long time, so I thought maybe I said something wrong. But then he smirked that stupid smirk of his and said, ‘I came in here to ask _you_ on a date. You’re not allowed to ask me.’ And I did the same thing he did moments before, when he just stared at me before busting into laughter. And then we began to date. And we dated for about a year and a half. And then he proposed to me.”

Stiles had stared at his parents, awestruck. “It was that easy? Just like that?”

“Easy?” His father chuckles. “It was anything but easy. She was crazy for about a month before I proposed, always bossing me around and dropping these ridiculous hints that if I didn’t propose to her soon, she would get even crazier. And I thought, ‘What the hell?’ and I asked her to marry me. And the wedding was a disaster. It was outdoors, but it was freezing that day, even though it was the middle of spring. And her parents hated me until about a month after the wedding. And we got into many fights, mind you.”

“Alright, hush,” his mother cuts in, interrupting his rambling.

And Stiles remembers looking at his parents, so happy, so in love, and he remembers thinking to himself, _I want that someday. I want to fall in love, and I want to be happy like my parents._

But things are different now. A lot different. When he was thirteen, he remembers that people in town seemed… stranger, in a way. He noticed that a lot of them looked fearful. And the first time he saw a werewolf, he understood why. He thought they were absolutely terrifying, as a thirteen-year-old boy. The first time he saw a werewolf in its wolf form, it was a boy in school who had gotten into a fight with another boy during his lunch period. He had just sat down next to Scott, getting ready to take a bite of his apple, when a shriek pierced the air. Stiles frowned, looking up to see a girl screaming and pointing at what Stiles thought at the time to be a monster. Soon, the cafeteria was thrown into something like chaos, everyone running and leaving, but Stiles had been frozen in place. He looked next to him, to Scott, to discover that he mirrored Stiles exactly. He looked as surprised and afraid as Stiles did. It was the single most terrifying thing to experience.

Soon, though, Stiles and Scott were on their feet, following the crowd out the doors in a flurry of panic and piercing shrieks. This was a lot of the middle school kids’ first experience with werewolves, but the school officials were prepared, anticipating something like this to happen soon, so they were lining the hallways, directing everyone to the gymnasium – every _human_ to the gymnasium. It was as if they were being segregated. Stiles didn’t know where the wolves were taken. He still doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if he wants to know.

So the students were taken to the gym, where they all chattered fearfully for about thirty minutes before the gym fell eerily silent, everyone looking around, trying to determine if anyone knew about this. Stiles remembers looking at every single students’ face, determined to figure out who was genuinely fearful and who was putting on a show. His dad taught him some easy ways to tell if someone was lying or putting on a front, so Stiles took full advantage of those skills now. It was apparent that several of the students were seemingly bored, which Stiles took as confirmation that they knew. Their parents must have told them, or someone had warned them, or they were associated with werewolves somehow. But a majority of the student body looked authentically scared.

After about an hour of sitting in the gymnasium huddled close with friends and waiting for an absolution, the school principal went on a loudspeaker and announced that they were to wait until their parents came to pick them up, and the principal would get on the loudspeaker every three minutes to alert students of parent pickups. Stiles was among the first group of students called, and he had never left the school faster.

Once in the car, he was demanding his father what had happened, what that monster in the school was. Things like that didn’t exist, not in real life. It was a myth, a fairytale. Little Red Riding Hood and all that. From a young age, he was taught that things like that weren’t real.

That night, his world of innocence that his parents built up so carefully, that they so tediously crafted around him, was shattered. His father was forced to tell him the truth, the whole truth, about everything. And Stiles drank in every word, getting angrier by the minute. Because, seriously, why the _hell_ would they keep stuff like this from him? Why wouldn’t they tell him, warn him, try to protect him? It didn’t make any sense.

“Stiles,” his father began, rubbing his face in obvious distress. “You have to understand that your mother and I were trying to protect you. We didn’t tell you because it was safer for you not to know.”

Stiles wanted to bite out something about it not being “safer” for him at all if he thought there was nothing out there than living in blissful ignorance, but he kept his mouth shut, fearing his father wouldn’t tell him as much if he spoke. So he only listened.

“We didn’t even know ourselves until it first became public about ten years ago,” his dad continued, picking his words very carefully. “There were wolves out in the woods, and the local government thought it would be a danger to citizens, so they went out to find it. And they discovered that it… it wasn’t a wolf. Not exactly. It was a… well, it was a werewolf. Which sounds ridiculous, I know it does, but… it’s true. Werewolves are very real, and they’re living out there, and they’re dangerous, son. Do you understand?”

Stiles nodded his head tentatively, not really knowing if it’s the response his father is looking for. In hindsight, Stiles realizes that his dad was probably worried that he wasn’t talking that much, that it was extremely uncharacteristic of him to be so silent.

“But not all of them are bad. They’re all dangerous, of course, but not all of them are exactly… bad. And they’ve been hiding for a long, long time. There have been hunters, though. And some of the hunters were reckless in their ways. They exposed wolves to humans. And when one human finds out, all of them might as well know. It got worse, and soon the national government found out. That’s when they decided to tell the sheriffs. They told me I wasn’t supposed to shoot at any strange creatures unless it was attacking. They told me… they told me everything. It wasn’t exactly what I expected of my first year as sheriff…” He chuckled sardonically, no amusement there. That’s what scared Stiles most of all.

They sat in an awkward silence for a few moments. Stiles didn’t know if this talk was over or not, but he just sat there patiently, waiting for his dad to either continue or dismiss him.

“I want you to be careful out there,” he said suddenly. “Once the schools open back up, you need to be careful. They’ll probably talk to you guys about it, too. And I don’t want you to be scared of them, okay? I just want you to be wary.”

Stiles nodded and cleared his throat. “What if someone I know is one of them?”

His father nodded, as if expecting the question. “Be their friend. Don’t lose that. Because… something’s coming. Something worse. It’s only going to get worse, do you understand? If… if the werewolves and hunters continue feuding, even after this, even after when the national government begins to make announcements and laws about it, it will get worse. And soon, even people who aren’t hunters will begin to turn against werewolves. And I don’t want that for us.” He paused for a moment before adding, “Your mother wouldn’t have wanted that for us.”

Stiles snapped his head up in surprise at the mention of his mother. It was a fresh wound, beginning to scab but still somehow bleeding. It had happened only a year and a half ago, and Stiles still felt that pang of pain that he felt when he initially received the news. He remembers his father crying, and that was the first time Stiles had ever seen the person who was his otherwise superhero break. Stiles didn’t ask any questions, not at the moment, but when his mother didn’t come home, he began to piece the puzzle together. He was extremely intuitive for a young age.

“Did…” His voice cracked, and he shook his head and cleared his throat in an attempt to make his voice clearer. “Did Mom know any? Werewolves, I mean.”

Stiles’s father nodded slowly. “Her best friend was one. But she… A hunter killed her.”

Stiles’ eyes had widened in shock at the admission. “Just because she was a werewolf?”

“They’re monsters in hunters’ eyes.”

And that was the first time Stiles realized that his whole world was about to change. There were going to be people killing other people because they were also wolves. There were going to be wolves killing people just because they were hunters. And it was a terrifying prospect.

Over the next few months at school, he remembers that the students began to separate themselves three distinctive groups: the werewolves who didn’t like humans, the humans who didn’t like werewolves, and the werewolves and humans alike who wanted to regain the peace between the two groups. Stiles watched as friendships were broken and relationships were ruined, and he watched as student after student walked into school each day, someone with a new story of how a family member was killed by a werewolf or hunter.

Scott and Stiles started off in the neutral group, not wanting to take sides. Soon, though, Scott began to date Allison Argent, who was in the Anti-Werewolf group. And Scott had sided with her. And Stiles had sided with Scott. And that was the end of it.

Every day, he noticed that more and more hate crimes were happening. They were happening everywhere, too. In the school, in the supermarket, in places of work. There was a werewolf who owned a boat and made a living as a commercial fisherman. He arrived at his boat one day to find the boat trashed, slanderous graffiti sprayed all over the windows, calling him an abomination, blaming him for their family members’ deaths.

The stories only got worse. Baby cubs were slaughtered in their homes; humans were torn apart in the woods. And at school, less werewolves showed up every day. And the werewolves that were brave enough to attend school were subject to more and more ridicule and nasty looks. Even the teachers joined in, lowering werewolves’ grades simply for being who they are. The last ones who dared to show up were the Hale siblings. Laura and Derek were in the high school that neighbored the middle school, but Cora was in the same grade as Stiles and Scott. And he remembers the day that Cora stopped attending because the news spread the next day: the Hale house had been set on fire, and the only survivor was Derek Hale and his uncle Peter.

And then a few weeks later, Scott was bitten. He confided in Stiles, telling him that he was turning. And he knew that a war was coming. At this point, everyone knew that a war was coming. The arson of the Hale house was the breaking point for the wolves, and as soon as they attacked, it was only a matter of time until the government decided they couldn’t contain it anymore and waged war on the wolves.

So Scott left. He left Beacon Hills, and Stiles didn’t blame him. He went to find Derek, who was in hiding in some part of the country. If Stiles was in his situation, he would’ve done the same exact thing. He broke up with Allison without telling her what had happened, knowing that her family would eventually find out and try to kill him. He told Stiles that he would find him again, that he would do whatever he could to put a stop to the impending war.

But the war went on, anyway. And his dad had to fight. Everyone over the age of eighteen was required to carry wolfs bane bullets and knives on them at all times and kill any wolf that came near them. And the whole time, Stiles hid in his room, wanting desperately to help but not knowing how. He was only fifteen at this point and completely useless.

The war ended only seven months later. A secret Human-Wolf Alliance had been hiding somewhere, and they eventually had enough members to stop the war, to get both sides to surrender. And then they took over the government. Humans and wolves alike, they took over the government and turned it into some kind of monarchy. In the beginning, it seemed like things were finally getting somewhere, that there would finally be peace amongst the two groups despite the differences, aside from a few murders every now and then. But then it turned into some kind of dystopia nightmare. The government turned into more of a monarchy than a democracy.

And that’s when they passed the law that required every human to be arranged a marriage to a werewolf at the age of eighteen. This was met with many protests from both humans and werewolves, but, in the end, there were too many people in the Human-Wolf Alliance for the law to be overruled.

Stiles didn’t really mind this rule. He figured that getting assigned to marry a random werewolf chick wouldn’t be a problem. He didn’t have anything against werewolves, even though he had a sneaking suspicion that his dad wasn’t really as fond of them as he used to be before the war. But his best friend was a werewolf, and his mom’s best friend was a werewolf, so it couldn’t be that bad. This rule didn’t particularly affect him. He figured that, without this law, he probably wouldn’t get married at all anyway. It’s not like Lydia had eyes for him, and he didn’t have eyes for anyone else, so getting paired with a hot girl in the form of a werewolf wasn’t really any worse than pining after the same girl since third grade, he decided.

And his birthday is tomorrow.

 

-

 

Stiles wakes up on his eighteenth birthday was a nervous feeling tickling his stomach. He doesn’t really have anyone to celebrate with, since he never actually made any new friends after Scott left, and he still doesn’t know where Scott is. Allison had stopped talking to him for keeping Scott’s secret from her and making him an “enemy” to her. He thinks that she’s over it by now, but he can’t be sure, so he just doesn’t talk to her at all.

Lydia and Jackson never really talked to him, anyway, and Danny’s cool, but he only talks to Stiles when they’re partnered together for some school project. And his dad’s too worried about this whole “arranged marriage” thing to be in the mood to celebrate.

He dresses himself quickly, noticing the time on the clock. The Ceremony is supposed to start at noon, and it’s already eleven-thirty. He wonders briefly why his father didn’t wake him up when he suddenly barges into Stiles’s room.

“Hey,” he says, his voice tinged with something akin to fear. “You’re awake.”

“Yeah, big day, you know,” Stiles replies, playing with his hair in the mirror and throwing on a plaid over his dark shirt.

“Stiles–”

“Yeah, Dad, I know,” he sighs, turning away from his mirror and facing his father fully. “I won’t be stupid, I’ll keep my mouth shut, and I’ll go with whatever they tell me. I got it the first hundred times you said it. Come on, I’m your son. Have a little faith!”

His dad looks like Stiles being Stiles is the farthest argument to convincing him to have any faith, but he sighs and nods anyway. “Look, I’m just worried about you, is all.”

“Well, don’t be,” Stiles tells him. “I’m fine. Really. I’m not that worried. Whoever I get paired with will like me. I’m Stiles. Who doesn’t like Stiles?”

His dad rolls his eyes, trying to smile but not really making it. “It’s just that I’m not used to all this. It’s… unusual. This isn’t how we used to do things, you know?”

“Yes, Dad, I do know. But I’d rather this than the alternative.”

“The alternative?”

“You know. Guns. Wolfs bane bullets. Explosions. Dead people. _Blood_. Actually, lots of blood.”

“Stiles…”

“Look, I’m just saying that if I have to make one little sacrifice in order for all of North America to not be waging some kind of twisted war against each other for no good reason, then I’ll do it. It’s really not a big deal, Dad.”

His father considers him for a moment before seeming to give in, nodding. He suddenly rushes forward and envelops Stiles into a bone-crushing hug, the force of it causing Stiles to stumble a little. He hugs back, though, just as fiercely, not willing to let go. He doesn’t want to lose this, this sense of belonging and family and wholeness. He knows that as soon as he walks out that door, he’ll never be able to feel this again, not in full. He knows that he’ll immediately be moved to a new house with his partner where they have a year to figure out if they want to make it work or file for a divorce. He knows that he’ll only be allowed to visit his family for two hours every day at most. He knows that he’ll have curfews. When he gives pause to think about it, it really isn’t fair at all. But it’s the sacrifice he and every person living in North America has to suffer through in order to keep a second war at bay.

“We should probably leave,” Stiles’s father says after a moment, stepping out of Stiles’s grip. He eyes his son with sad, old eyes, as if drinking in this last image of Stiles as he is, as he’ll never be again.

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees, surprised to find his voice is hoarse, his eyes burning with unshed tears. “Yeah, we should.” They stand in the small confines of Stiles’s room for another moment, just staring at each other, neither willing to give this up. But then Stiles snaps out of it, ducking to grab the car keys out of his dad’s hands and shouting, “I’m driving!” as he races down the stairs, trying to achieve some level of normalcy.

 

-

 

The Auditorium is packed.

It’s the first time he’s ever been in the Auditorium, as it’s occupied every day only by the daily birthday Ceremonies and any kinds of government Meetings. And if Stiles thought it looked big from the outside, being inside was like a slap to the face. There were at least a thousand rows of seats, enough to probably fit the whole town of Beacon Hills and more, if needed. The whole Auditorium isn’t quite filled, but at least half of it is, full of the other teenagers turning eighteen today and their family members, along with the werewolves who’ll be paired off today.

They arrive right as the Ceremony is starting, so they only have time to grab seats at the back of the Auditorium before Mariah Perry, the head representative of the whole Human-Werewolf Alliance and the current “President” of the country (though Stiles finds it hard to call her a president when she’s more of a monarch), steps onto the stage and speaks into the microphone in crisp authoritative sounds. Stiles wants to look at the werewolves, see who’s been picked for today’s Ceremony, but he doesn’t have enough time, and it’s hard to see over the rows of heads in front of him to make out faces in the werewolf section. So he shuts his mouth and waits for Mariah to finish the opening speech, outlining the Rules in a way that definitely shouldn’t be as intimidating as it is.

“As you all know, there are certain rules which must be followed,” she says, enunciating every word clearly. “No werewolf is allowed to turn their partner into a werewolf. No human or werewolf is allowed to kill the other. If either of these rules are broken, it will result in the immediate death of the responsible party. Once partnered, you will be relocated to a house in the city, and that is to be your new home. You will live there with each other. You will get along. There will be a set curfew. Most nights, this curfew will be eleven o’clock at night, and if you’re found outside after eleven, this will result in immediate Duty for two days. Duty includes cleaning public establishments, such as bathrooms, restaurants, and bars. It also includes sleeping in a cell with the rest of the people who disobeyed curfew. Keep in mind that these cells are very, very small, but we will not hesitate to shove all of you into one cell. You are allowed to visit your family for two hours at most every day. You are allowed to spend the night at your family’s house once every two weeks. Remember that Duty results in automatic suspension of these privileges until otherwise noted. Your house will consist of one kitchen, one bathroom, and one bedroom. The bedroom also constitutes the living room. This will most likely not be a problem, as people will rarely come to visit your house. Any personal rendezvous’ will usually take place somewhere else. After this Ceremony is over, you will be given an hour to pack and say goodbye before an Official comes to your house to take you to your new location. Is this clear?”

Mariah eyes everyone in the audience, and everyone hurries to nod, not willing to argue with her. She smiles, as if satisfied.

“You will live with your partner for at least a year. After that year is over, you will have the choice of filing for a divorce. If you do not file for a divorce, you will most likely live with your partner for the rest of your life. Once you file for a divorce, you cannot take it back. If you do not file for a divorce but I or another Official feel you do not make a satisfying pair, you will automatically be filed a divorce. What a divorce means is that after the year is up, we will evaluate your pairing and take into consideration your feelings on the divorce and your compatibility, and we will then decide if we will approve the divorce or not. If your divorce is not approved, then you will remain living together, no arguments. If your divorce is approved, then you two will part ways. You will never be allowed to speak to your partner again. You will never be allowed to see your partner again. You will never be assigned to a new person. You will go back to living with your family. Am I clear?”

Again, she fixes everyone in the Auditorium with her steely gaze that is just plain scary, but Stiles feels himself nodding. His father nudges him in the side, shooting him an encouraging smile. Stiles just gives his dad an unconvincing thumbs up.

That’s when everyone begins to get paired. Stiles knows that they always go in alphabetical order, and there are surprisingly a lot of people in the state of California who share a birthday with him. He also knows that the werewolves aren’t here based on birthdays. They’re picked randomly, all their names placed in a ballot and chosen by hand at random. He knows that they do this to make sure that there is an even amount of humans and werewolves, but even so, Stiles can’t help but feel this is a bit unfair. This way, all humans are forced to get married against their will on their eighteenth birthday, and then they’re forced to make the decision of getting a divorce or not on their nineteenth birthday. Stiles sighs and slumps in his seat while he waits for his name to be called.

It’s a little after two when he finally hears, “Mr. Stilinski!” being called out by Mariah’s scary voice from the stage.

Stiles leaps up and hurries to the front, suddenly regretting the decision of not trying to find closer seats. The walk to the stage is a long one, and he can feel everyone staring at him the whole time, and the longer he walks, the longer the aisle seems to get, and it’s like he’s in one of those nightmares where he’s running, but he can never reach the location he’s trying so desperately to reach, even though he can see it _right there_. Suddenly, he feels overwhelmed, like maybe he’s going to have a panic attack right there in the middle of the Auditorium, in front of hundreds of other people and wolves. But then he’s climbing the stairs, and the feeling is gone, replaced instead by a feeling of foreboding, like perhaps he’s getting himself into something he’s never going to be able to get out of. But of course he can get out of it; he has that option –

“Mr. Stilinski,” Mariah says, winding a cunning arm around his shoulders, cutting off his inner tirade (despite how scary she is, Stiles has to thank her a thousand times over for that).

“Ms. Perry,” Stiles greets her with a tiny salute and an awkward, nervous grin, and he wants to slap his head when he feels a few people giggle at that. God, could this _get_ any worse? Stiles doesn’t think it can. He really, really doesn’t think this day can get any worse. He just crosses his fingers and hopes for a hot werewolf.

“Um, Ms. Perry,” a voice suddenly speaks up from her side. Stiles turns to see that the voice came from Jacob Roberts, Mariah’s most trusted confidante. He has his eyebrows knitted together, as if he’s confused about something.

“Yes, Mr. Roberts?” Mariah grits out, and when Stiles looks back to Mariah, he can see that she’s sporting a tight-lipped smile, the kind that lets everyone know that she’s not pleased with the interruption. And at this point, Stiles is starting to worry, too. There hasn’t been an interruption yet, and Stiles is at least the fiftieth one on stage, probably more (he was zoning out through a lot of it, so he wasn’t really paying attention), so this causes immediate concern to him. He looks at the audience to see a few of them whispering to their neighbors, and his eyes seek out his father’s, who looks just as concerned as Stiles is.

“Um, it’s just that – I’m looking at the pairings, and I think this – this must be a mistake, Ms. Perry.”

“I don’t make mistakes, Roberts,” she snaps out, adorning a smile the entire time.

“Ms. Perry…”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she says, clearly annoyed. “Will you just read the pairing?”

After a moment, Jacob nods, clearing his throat. “Mr. Stilinski,” he says, loud and clear, voice projecting enough to carry across the entire Auditorium. “You have been paired with the alpha werewolf, Mr. Derek Hale.”


	2. 365 Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's decided to give this fic a chance! I'm sending you all a bunch of kisses! Please bear with the original character, as I'm pretty sure that she is going to be the last one I incorporate into this fic, and I promise you, she's going to be important (she's also pretty badass, to be honest)! Lastly, I know that there are multiple characters in the tags that have yet to make an appearance, but they all will, I promise :)

A hush falls over the Auditorium.

It is eerily silent in a matter of seconds. No one’s giggling at Stiles anymore. They’re gaping. And Stiles doesn’t blame them because he’s pretty sure he is, too. All of a sudden, that sensation of _I can’t breathe_ comes flooding back, and he feels light he needs to get out of the Auditorium _now_. He feels like he might throw up. Or pass out. Or maybe he’ll make a terribly inappropriate joke about the situation and then throw up and pass out. It’d be a record for him.

Against his will, his eyes seek out Derek in the audience. He scans the section in the Auditorium reserved for the werewolves and finds Derek staring back at him, his face a mask of unveiled rage. He looks like he could walk onto the stage right then and there and snap Stiles in half, as if this whole thing is his fault, as if he wants to be partnered with Derek any more than Derek wants to be partnered with him. As if he personally requested Derek or something, which he most definitely did not, mind you.

It’s also a surprise due to the fact that there’s never, to Stiles’s knowledge, been a homosexual partnership before. It’s not like anyone really cares about that kind of stuff, not anymore. Since the war, stuff like that simply did not matter. And everyone knows how big of a liberal Mariah Perry is, but this just… doesn’t make any sense. Because Stiles isn’t gay. And he doesn’t think that Derek is, either. So why the hell are they being partnered together?

“Stiles?” Mariah whispers into his ear, nudging him a little, and this brings him back to reality. He’s pretty sure he was staring at Derek the whole time, and now that his eyes are refocusing, he can see that Derek looks even angrier than he did a second ago.

Stiles clears his throat and nods, aiming a tight-lipped smile at Mariah. He hurries off the stage, not looking back at Mariah or Derek or anyone. He leaves the Auditorium as quickly as he can, making his way outdoors, seeking out the fresh air.

He was wrong earlier, when he thought that things couldn’t get any worse. Because they are a lot worse now. Marginally worse. Telescopically worse. And he still can’t breathe, and before he knows it, he’s throwing up, and then he feels a hand on his back, and Stiles knows it’s his dad, and he wants to turn around and thank him for following him out because he really doesn’t want to be alone right now, he _needs_ someone with him, but he still can’t talk. It’s like someone’s stepping on his throat, blocking his airways, and he wants nothing more than to stop feeling so nauseous.

“Stiles?” his dad asks tentatively after a moment of Stiles dry heaving. “Son?”

Stiles straightens his back slowly, pacing himself carefully. “I’m okay,” he chokes out, throat dry.

His dad gives him another moment to calm down before guiding him back to the front doors of the Auditorium. “We need to go back inside.”

“I can’t–”

“Yes, you can,” his dad mutters. “We’ll talk about this after the Ceremony, okay?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Stiles tells him stubbornly. “I don’t – why is this happening?”

“We’ll talk about it later,” he repeats, and then he opens the doors to the auditorium, and they’re both walking inside, and Stiles knows that everyone is staring at him openly, that they probably think he’s a freak now, but, really, what else could he have done? They could have at least warned him or something. They could have told him that he wasn’t going to be partnered with a girl. They could have told him beforehand that he was going to be partnered with _Derek Hale_. Anyone who’s partnered with Derek Hale deserves a warning beforehand.

But Stiles just keeps his head down, ignoring the stares, and sits even farther back in the Auditorium than he did before, ignoring the gazes and the unspoken questions and judgmental stares.

What’s Derek Hale doing in Beacon Hills anyway? Stiles thought that he was with Scott, wherever Scott was. How did he end up back here? Maybe they tracked him down for this Ceremony. Stiles wonders if they’ll track Scott when it’s Scott’s turn to get partnered. And then Stiles feels like hitting Scott because what kind of best friend just leaves without a backward glance? Scott said he’d come to find Stiles, that he’d be back, but it’s been two years, and Stiles hasn’t heard one single word from him. And Stiles really seriously needs a friend right now.

Stiles digs his fingernails into his palms as roughly as he can, hoping that the pain would distract him from this train of thoughts. He shuts his eyes and blocks out the noise, ignoring the names of the people and the werewolves who follow Stiles in their pairing, ignoring Mariah’s closing speech. He ignores Jacob Roberts as he says some final words. What they’re saying is probably important, but Stiles can’t find it in himself to care. He just wants to get out this place.

When he first walked into the Auditorium, he thought it was the largest place he’d ever stepped into in his life. Now, however, he’s starting to feel extremely claustrophobic, the air around him constricting his neck.

“Stiles,” his dad says in that tone that implies that it’s not the first time he’s said his name. When Stiles looks at him, he can see that the rest of the Auditorium is already empty. Which, okay, when did that happen?

“Yeah,” Stiles says, standing up in a way that probably looks way too nonchalant to his father, considering he saw him throwing up about two hours ago. “Yeah, I’m good, let’s go.”

“Stiles,” his father repeats, a hint of worry tingeing his voice.

“I should probably start getting packed, right?” Stiles continues, walking out the doors and to his car in the parking lot. “I guess I can probably leave most of my stuff at your house, right? I mean, all I really need are my clothes. Oh, and my laptop. That’s a definite necessity. Maybe some books. Do you think there’ll be a TV at this new house?”

“Stiles–”

“What about, like, silverware? Or do I need to bring my own forks and stuff? Or pillows or blankets or–”

“Stiles!”

This time, Stiles stops talking, the frustration in his father’s tone evident. He stops just short of his Jeep and turns to look at him, surprised to see that his father’s face is a contorted into something akin to sadness and concern and fear, all thrown into one.

“I… Are you okay?”

The rawness in his father’s voice takes him aback, and he finds himself staring blankly at his dad, blinking slowly a few times.

“Yeah, Dad, I’m fine,” he lies quickly, turning back to his car. But his dad is having none of that.

“Stiles, throwing up and then dry heaving for nearly ten minutes isn’t _okay_ ,” his dad argues, placing a hand on Stiles’s shoulder to stop him from getting into the car. “Will you just talk to me?”

Stiles turns around slowly, hating to hear the hurt in his dad’s voice. Yeah, okay, so Stiles isn’t exactly being fair about any of this. But what does his dad expect him to do? Complain and yell and fight it until his heart gives out? Because that’ll get him nowhere. If anything, that’ll get him into jail. There was a girl once who fought against it when she was partnered with a werewolf, and she ended up in jail, accused of trying to start a rebellion. So, no, Stiles will shut the hell up and sit back and let things proceed the way they will.

“Dad, it’s okay. Really,” he says with as much conviction as he can muster.

“But are _you_ okay?”

“Well, you already know the answer to that one, don’t you?” Stiles mutters, turning back to the car. And this time, his dad lets him get in.

They drive home in silence. It’s not exactly awkward, but it isn’t companionable, either. It’s just… there. It’s almost tense, but it’s not. And Stiles definitely isn’t making any sense in his own mind right now, so he changes tactics and turns on the radio, switching to the Hit Station and blasting that annoyingly upbeat, auto-tuned pop music that he’d never admit to secretly liking. But if ever there was a time to turn the volume all the way up on a Selena Gomez song, this was it.

Once they get to the house, Stiles just sits in the car for a moment, staring at the house. Because this isn’t technically his house anymore. And that thought more than anything is what snaps the last of resolve, and he starts to cry, and once he starts, he can’t stop, and the tears seem never-ending. He doesn’t know how it happens, but the next thing he knows is that he’s sitting on the couch in his living room, and he’s hugging his dad, and he’s still crying. And he should be embarrassed, but he can’t find it in him to care. He’s been doing a lot of that in the past four hours, not caring.

And then he laughs. Hysterical chuckles start to fall from his lips, and he’s halfway crying and halfway laughing. But he can’t help it. Because he woke up this morning to a normal life with normal rules that everyone follows. He went to the Ceremony. He got partnered with someone. It’s just that he never imagined in a million years that he would get partnered with Derek Hale. And the idea of _him_ and _Derek Hale_ living together for a year is all of a sudden hilarious, in a melancholy kind of way. Because they are the last two people in the world who should’ve ever been paired together. Who took a look at Stiles and thought, “Hey, Derek Hale would be a good match for him”?

And in less than five hours, his life has been thrown into some kind of laughable inverse of what it was before. He finds himself wondering which one of them would be doing the _cooking_ , for god’s sake. And the image of Derek Hale slaving over a stove pops into his mind all of a sudden, and he doubles over in laughter.

He knows he won’t find this all so funny in a few hours, but right now, it’s hilarious.

After he’s stopped laughing, though, he sobers immediately, looking at his dad with worry written clear on his face. “What am I going to do?” he asks helplessly.

His dad only shrugs, a sad smile gracing his lips. Stiles is struck suddenly with the memory of his dad using that same smile when talking of his mother crying all those years ago, back when things were normal. When they were good.

“File for a divorce?” his dad suggests.

Stiles chuckles once without humor. “Well, obviously.” They sit in silence for a few beats, but then Stiles is talking again. “Why me? Why did they choose me to be the poster boy for the gay community? I’m not even gay!”

“I don’t know,” his father answers in that tone he uses when he genuinely doesn’t know something. He sounds confused, even, as if he doesn’t get it, either. Well, who _would_ get it? It makes absolutely no sense. “But you only have thirty minutes left to pack, so why don’t we go upstairs and get started, huh?”

Stiles nods, wiping quickly underneath his eyes. He stands and gives what he hopes is a reassuring smile to his dad before walking upstairs, his dad following behind. Once in the room, that feeling of overwhelming sadness hits him again, knowing he’ll never be in this room the same way again. He doesn’t want to take anything with him, not really, because once it leaves this room, then it won’t be the same. The stuff he moves to his new house are only going to props, things used to make his and Derek’s “home” look like an actual home until the year is over. And once the year is over, Stiles is coming right back to this house and taking all his stuff with him. So, really, it’s pointless to bring anything. But he knows he has to keep up appearances, so he quickly moves to his closet and pulls out the large suitcase that he owns, stuffing clothing into it haphazardly.

“Those clothes are going to wrinkle if you don’t fold them,” his dad tells him from across the room.

“What, they don’t have washing machines at the new house?” Stiles asks sarcastically, but he takes the clothes back out and folds them properly nevertheless, if only to appease his father.

“Is there anything else you want?” he asks, looking around the room.

“Not really,” Stiles answers, evaluating the room. “I mean, I’m going to be back here in a year, right? So it’s fine. Most of it can stay. But I wasn’t kidding about my laptop. I definitely need that.”

His dad grins at him before passing him the object, which Stiles plops right on top of the clothes in the suitcase. His dad looks like he wants to protest the way he’s packing his things, but he seems to bite his tongue. “I want you to have this,” he says abruptly, handing something to Stiles.

Stiles looks up at him, surprised. He takes the object from his father, turning it over in his hands, to see that it’s a picture frame with an image of them tucked behind the glass. And it’s not just of him and his dad, but his mom’s in there, too. It’s from before the war, before Stiles even knew that werewolves were a real thing. They’re at Disneyland, standing like the worst tourists in the world in front of the sign that says “Disneyland” on it, and Stiles is sitting on top of his mother’s shoulders, a chunk of her hair clasped in between his hands. Stiles has seen this picture a thousand times – it’s the one that hangs in the hallway, right outside his bedroom – but the image brings tears to his eyes, anyway. The fact that his dad is giving it to him is probably part of the reason. It’s as if his dad is gifting it to him before he’s earned it, somehow. It feels something like a rite of passage that he doesn’t deserve, but that’s a ridiculous idea, so he quickly tucks the frame carefully underneath some of his clothes before he can dwell on it any longer.

And then there’s a knock at the door, and Stiles knows it’s time for him to leave. But he doesn’t want to – _god_ , he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to leave this room or this house. Mostly, he doesn’t want to leave his dad. Because if Stiles isn’t there, then his dad’s alone, really.

Stiles lunges forward to envelop his dad in a fierce hug, not willing to let go, not yet. But then there’s another knock at the door, and he knows he has to let go and leave. So he does. He lets go of his father and makes his way downstairs, his father following quietly. But then he remembers that he left his suitcase upstairs – god, what kind of idiot is he? – but when he turns, he sees that his dad has it in his hand. His dad smiles at him, and Stiles smiles back, the last genuine smile he’ll share with anyone for a while, he suspects.

Stiles opens the door to see one of Mariah’s Officials standing there. The Official smiles at Stiles, a genuine, comforting smile, and that more than anything helps to loosen up some of Stiles’ nerves. He takes a deep, reassuring breath and turns to his father, considering hugging him again but not trusting himself to, afraid he’ll never let go or, worse, start crying again in front of this Official.

“I love you,” he settles on instead, smiling a watery smile.

“I love you, too,” his dad replies. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

Stiles nods once before he allows the Official to guide him to the minibus where a few other people are already settled in. He takes a deep breath to ground himself before climbing on the bus, allowing his life to be changed forever.

 

-

 

The bus is as eerily silent as the Auditorium had been that morning when Jacob Roberts read out the name “Derek Hale” as Stiles’s partner.

For a brief, slightly egotistical moment, Stiles thinks that it’s because of him, that everyone’s staring at him because of his current circumstance. But then he remembers that all of them had been paired just this morning, and none of them are probably too excited about it, and he figures that they probably already forgot about it. Either that or they just don’t seem to care anymore. It must’ve gotten old fast.

Everyone’s eyes are averted, looking out the window or staring down at their hands. One girl looks like she’s about to cry. Stiles wonders if she did cry as soon as she got home, like he did. He hopes not. He hopes that he was the only one who felt that terrible.

The Official guides him to a seat in the back of the bus that’s empty. He doesn’t know where the houses that they’re going to are located at, so he has no clue how long the ride is going to be. He suddenly wishes that he had brought his iPod or something. He also wishes that people were still allowed to carry cell phones. Then maybe he could’ve played Tetris or something on it. Instead, he just settles back and shuts his eyes.

He has no idea how long he stayed like that, but he startles awake when the bus hits a bump in the road. He looks around to see that they’re now in a neighborhood he’s never seen before, distinctly different houses lining either side of him. For some reason, it’s comforting to Stiles, the fact that each house seems to have its own personality. If he had to live in one of those cookie-cutter neighborhoods where everything looks exactly the same, he’s not sure he would’ve been able to go through with what is already an outrageous situation.

The bus comes to an abrupt halt. Stiles sits up straighter in his seat, glancing around at all the other faces, who are looking straight ahead. So Stiles follows suit, directing his eyes to the front of the bus, where the same Official who picked him up at his house is now standing, a smile gracing her face. It strikes Stiles how crazy it seems, the prospect of smiling at a time like this.

“All of you on this bus have houses along this street,” she tells them, her voice louder and more demanding than Stiles expected out of someone as seemingly friendly as her, but there are undercurrents of kindness in her tone. “Your partners are already at your house. I will call you forward one by one, and I will tell you your house number. You will then go to your house and settle in. There is to be no leaving the house tonight, as it is the first day, and things will be too hectic if leaving is permitted.”

She pauses for a brief moment, her smile growing more neighborly by the moment, as if she wants them all to believe that everything will be okay. Stiles can feel himself disliking this quality of hers, but he knows it could be worse. She could be cold and rude instead of open and friendly. Stiles finds himself wondering which would be worse.

“I am the Official for this street,” she announces, and this catches Stiles’s attention. He wasn’t aware that there was a specific Official for each street. “This means that if you or your partner have any problems, you will come to me. If you have any complaints, you will come to me. If you are given Duty, you will report first to me. If you wish to make a phone call, you will come to me, and I will provide you with a phone. If you wish to see your family, you will come to me. If you need anything at all, you will come to me. And if any of you have a problem with this rule…” She stops talking now, raising her hand in front of her and eyeing everyone on the bus. Suddenly, claws are extending out of her hand, and her eyes are flashing a dangerous yellow color that Stiles knows too well. It’s the same color Scott’s eyes had been when he was reflecting the wolf. “See to it that you rid yourself of those problems immediately.”

There are a few frightful glances amongst the other people on the bus, and one kid even looks to be disgusted. But Stiles can only feel himself liking this woman more and more by the moment. She’s nice, comforting, badass, and intimidating, all rolled into one girl with bright red hair and a warm smile. Stiles decides that it’s a good thing that she’s open and friendly. He’s not sure he would be okay with reporting to a cold and rude person every time he needed something.

Within seconds, her claws are retracting, being replaced with one of those genuine grins. “My name is Cheyenne, by the way. But you will all call me Anne.”

And then she’s calling names, and one after one, people leave the bus. Stiles watches as everyone walks off, taking off down the street and seeking out their new houses. And Stiles is the last one on the bus.

He stands up before Anne has a chance to call his name, walking up to her and shooting her a small grin. “Well?” he asks.

“Mr. Stilinski,” she says, looking slightly amused. “I was hoping to talk to you in private for a moment.”

“What – me? Why?” he asks, honestly confused.

“Just sit,” she says, gesturing to the front seat on the bus. Stiles obeys, falling back until he’s sitting and staring at her expectantly until she begins to talk. “You’re special, Stiles.”

Stiles frowns slightly. “Isn’t it going to be suspicious if I walk off the bus later than everyone else? I know there are cameras out there. Big brother and all that.”

The amused glint in her eyes intensifies, and she’s positively beaming at him when she continues. “No, Mariah and Jacob won’t find anything out of place, nor will any of the other Officials who are in charge of patrolling or reviewing the camera feedback. Everyone wants to talk to you, Stiles.”

“Well, as heartwarming as that is, I’m not really in the mood.”

“Stiles Stilinski isn’t in the mood to talk? I find that hard to believe. According to your records, you’re big on talking.”

Stiles only shrugs, wanting to prove her wrong. However, when the silence only drags on for far too long to sit well with him, he rubs a hand over his face and sighs dramatically. “What? Why do you want to talk to me?”

Her grin widens but only for a moment because then her whole expression softens, her smile turning sad. “Are you okay?”

Stiles’s frown deepens in confusion, and he finds himself staring at Anne with something like wonder. Because, honestly, what kind of werewolf Official cares if a human who has just gotten partnered off is “okay”? If she cared that much, she would’ve been asking every single person who got off the bus how they felt, and she didn’t.

“I – yeah, I guess,” he answers in a daze, too confused to think up something witty.

“You can be honest with me,” she says, that sad smile still on her lips, but it’s still somehow warm and inviting.

“Let me ask you a question,” he says, sitting up a little bit straighter. “You said I was special. Why am I special?”

Her whole expression changes, and she looks like Stiles has just passed a test or something. “Mariah wouldn’t pair just anyone with Derek Hale,” Anne explains.

“What – what do you mean by that? Do you know him?”

“You could say that,” she tells him, and that’s as much as she gives away – seriously, why the hell are wolves so freaking mysterious? – before she takes the conversation off of Derek for the most part, focusing it back on Stiles. “Mariah Perry must see something in you, Stiles. All of us Officials have been worrying about the day that Derek was picked for the Ceremony because absolutely no one has been compatible with Derek in a long time. We were pretty sure that no matter who was partnered with Derek, it would end in them at least filing for a divorce. And you know how Mariah is. She doesn’t like it when her pairings get a divorce. She puts a lot of thought behind these pairings, and very rarely does she even consult with anyone else about them. Usually, she handpicks every single pairing. Jacob will help her every now and then, but she takes great pride in her pairings. So when someone files for a divorce, she doesn’t take it lightly. Do you know how hard it is to get a divorce approved, Stiles?”

Stiles blinks once and shakes his head, mystified by all this information. Who even _is_ this girl, so willing to share all of this with Stiles? He’s pretty sure most of this must be at least a little confidential, considering that he didn’t know any of this before, and he’s willing to bet that a hell of a lot of other people don’t know this.

“Well, let me paint you a picture,” she says, stepping closer to him. “Last year, over one thousand five hundred people in the state of California filed for a divorce. Ask me how many of them were approved.”

“Well, seeing as you’re going to answer the question anyway, I don’t see the point in asking,” Stiles replies. But this is only met with silence. Anne stares at him expectantly for a moment before Stiles finds himself asking, “Fine, okay, I’ll play along. How many of them were approved?”

“Fifty-eight,” she tells him matter-of-factly. “That’s only about three percent, Stiles. Mariah doesn’t like approving divorces. So, yes, she chooses these pairings very carefully. And in the case of Derek Hale, I think it’ll be very hard for Mariah to grant him a divorce. She doesn’t like him being on his own, you see.”

“That’s touching,” Stiles interjects, but he falls silent at Anne’s harsh stare. It’s the meanest expression he’s seen her wear so far, and it’s already being wiped off her face, replaced once again with a calming smile.

“She doesn’t want him to remain married out of sentiment. Quite the opposite. She wants Derek miserable. He is perhaps the one person in the entire world for which her default level of hatred towards everyone is magnified significantly. And I can already tell that you’re going to ask me why, but don’t bother because I’m not going to tell you.”

Stiles presses his lips firmly together at that admonishment, waiting for her to continue. When she doesn’t, Stiles decides it’s safe to talk again. “So what you’re saying is that Mariah partnered me with Derek because she knew he’d hate me? That I’m going to be miserable by default because of this personal vendetta she has against Derek?”

“Stiles, you have to understand,” Anne says, a pleading edge to her voice. “She has nothing against you.”

“Yes, I know, it’s only Derek she hates. Lucky me.”

“She didn’t partner you with him because she thought he would hate you,” Anne goes on, as if Stiles hadn’t said anything. “She partnered you with him because she thought he was less likely to hate you than anyone else.”

Once again, Stiles’ brows are furrowing together in bewilderment. “So she partnered me with Derek – someone who she hates, may I add – because she thought he would _like_ me? She thought he might _enjoy_ my company?”

“I didn’t say that,” she snaps. “But… to a degree, yes. And the only thing Derek would dislike more than being partnered with someone he despises is being partnered with someone he’s fond of.”

“Okay, lady, look,” Stiles says, standing from his seat. “Derek is the farthest from _fond_ of me. If Derek and fondness are on opposite ends of the earth, then I’m on the freaking moon. If what I remember is correct, Derek isn’t exactly _fond_ of anyone.”

Anne tilts her head to the side, as if calculating. Her eyes narrow slightly, and her mouth tilts upwards in amusement. “What you remember seems to be correct. But Mariah thinks he will become fond of you. She thinks he will become protective of you. I’m not saying she’s right,” she tells him forcefully when she can sense that he’s about to argue. “She could be right, and she could be wrong. If it means anything to you, I personally think she is wrong. But if Derek begins to feel something like fondness in regards to you, then he will not want anything to do with you. Do you understand? Derek avoids affection. So he will then file for a divorce. And she will try her damnedest to decline the divorce. So if you decide that you want a divorce, Mr. Stilinski, then you better come up with one hell of an argument and practice it every day because you are the factor that decides whether or not she will approve or decline the divorce. Am I making myself clear?”

Stiles only stares at her for a second before blurting out, “Are you helping me?”

She smirks at him then, moving out of the way of the door. “Be careful, Stiles,” she warns him.

Stiles doesn’t know how to respond to all of this information, so he just nods before hurrying down the steps of the bus and hitting the pavement.

“Mr. Stilinski,” Anne calls, and when Stiles turns around, he can see that she’s already seated back in the driver’s seat, that permanent smile of hers never faltering. “It’s a cruel thing, indeed, to force two individuals to live together for a year, knowing they are likely to become caring of one another, and then make them choose to never speak to each other again or remain living together for the rest of their lives under the guise of marriage.” She looks directly at him, and though her smile is still intact, her eyes speak of sadness. “Don’t you think?”

Before Stiles even has time to think about replying to her, she’s shouting out his house number for him and then closing the bus door, driving away, leaving Stiles to only stare after the retreating vehicle in a mixture of astonishment and something close to admiration.

 

-

 

It isn’t that hard to find out where his house is. It’s two down and to the left of where he was dropped off. The walls are painted a light blue color with white trim, and there are bright pink flowers growing from bushes and pots placed at random intervals against the walls. There’s a tiny table and four chairs set outside the house. For all the world, it looks like the American dream house.

Stiles has to take numerous reassuring breaths before he actually finds the nerve to approach the house. He stops awkwardly outside the door, trying to decide whether or not he should knock, but then he remembers that Derek’s a freaking werewolf and can probably sense that he’s been standing outside for almost ten minutes, and if that isn’t embarrassing, then Stiles isn’t sure what is.

So he opens the door and walks inside, and before he even has the chance to take a look at the place, his suitcase is being thrown to the floor and Stiles finds himself being pinned against the door, a large arm holding him there by his neck. Stiles has time to make this weird coughing noise before a finger is being shoved in his face.

“We’re getting a divorce,” Derek is telling him angrily, and when Stiles’ eyes focus, he sees that Derek is right in his face, his face contorted into an intimidating image of the Derek that he remembers seeing picking up Cora from the middle school before all of this nonsense started.

“Okay, no need to threaten me, I’m already on your side about that,” Stiles is able to choke out, and Stiles doesn’t know if Derek is aware of it or not, but his werewolf super strength is really starting to take a toll on his neck.

But Derek lets go of him and backs away, his expression still furious.

“Okay, why are you looking at me like all of this is my fault?” Stiles asks.

“How else would this have happened?” Derek grits out between clenched teeth.

“You – are you kidding me? You seriously think that I had something to do with this? Do you think I walked up to Mariah myself and personally requested you? I had nothing to do with this!”

“Then how did this happen?” Derek asks again.

“That, I don’t have an answer for right now.” He sighs once before allowing his eyes to dart around the room. There’s a large bed in the middle of the room with what Stiles assumes is Derek’s suitcase on top of it, and a television is pointed at the bed. There’s also a couch resting against the wall opposite the bed. There’s a small hallway that opens up into a kitchen on one side and a closed door on the other, a room that Stiles presumes to be the bathroom. The walls aren’t blue in here but a beige color. “I’m not sharing a bed with you,” Stiles finds himself blurting out, and if he thought he couldn’t embarrass himself any more when he was standing outside for ten minutes, then he was very wrong.

Derek looks almost surprised for a moment, as if the thought in and of itself was absurd – which, okay, it _was_ , but it’s one of those things that Stiles has to be sure of before he can let himself think of anything else – before he schools his face into a scowl. “Of course you’re not,” he says harshly, picking up Stiles’s suitcase from the floor and throwing it onto the couch. “You’re taking the couch.”

“What? Why do I get the shitty couch when you get the large and comfortable-looking bed?”

“Because I can rip out your throat and use the blood to paint the walls,” Derek replies.

“Actually, you can’t, dumbass,” Stiles protests. “In case you weren’t up to date on this whole situation, if you kill me, they’ll kill you, so your threats are falling on deaf ears, my friend.”

In a blur, Derek suddenly has Stiles pinned to the wall again, and this time, he’s definitely aware of the amount of pressure he’s applying to Stiles’s neck. “No, but I can still hurt you. There’s no rule against hurting. Only turning and killing. Am I right or wrong?”

“Um… well, technically, you’re right, but I think we should make a new set of rules. And rule number one should be no hurting. And also no yelling. No talking to each other. No acknowledging each other’s existence. We can just live in blissful ignorance.”

Derek stares at Stiles for a minute, as if actually considering the idea, before he’s backing up again, nodding his head slowly. “Fine. You want to make a new set of rules? Rule number one: You sleep on the couch.”

“What? No, that’s not fair!”

“Do you want me to go back to hurting you? Either is fine with me.”

“Uh… No, no, the not-hurting-Stiles is good progress,” Stiles says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Okay, how about rule number two? Rule number two is that you can’t talk to me unless you’re being nice, yeah?”

Derek’s scowl deepens, and his eyes suddenly flash red, which, okay, that’s definitely scary.

“How about rule number two is that you shut the hell up and stop being such a smartass?” Derek shoots back at him.

“I veto that rule,” Stiles declares. At Derek’s glare, however, Stiles pantomimes zipping his lips and locking them. Then he gestures in a way that says “See? I’m doing what you told me, so don’t pin me to the wall again.”

Derek rolls his eyes and turns to the bed, unzipping his suitcase and taking out articles of clothing, shoving them into the drawer underneath the television. So Stiles sighs and moves to the couch, opening his own suitcase and retrieving his clothes, deciding to pile them on the floor next to the couch for now instead of taking the chances of crossing Derek’s path and using the drawer. He hopes at least that Derek will leave at least one drawer open for his clothes. He then pulls out his laptop and shoves it underneath the couch for now. Lastly, he takes out the picture of him and his mom and dad at Disneyland all those years ago and places it on the end table next to the couch, turning it so that it faces the wall, not wanting Derek to see it. He doesn’t want Derek to see something so personal of his.

Afterwards, Stiles picks up a change of clothes and ventures to the bathroom. At first, he’s shocked at how nice it is. There’s a huge bathtub with jets at the far end of the bathroom, and it looks as if it could fit at least six people inside it at one time. Next to it, there’s a separate shower, the door made of glass, and even that is large, the walls of it tiled with a light blue color. The sink is made of marble, and there are two separate faucets. There’s a door leading into what must be the actual toilet, seeing as it’s the only thing missing from this part of the bathroom.

Stiles quickly undresses and steps into the shower, leaving his change of clothes on the sink counter. He turns the water on and sets it to the hottest setting, just to see how hot it gets. And it burns his skin, but that’s okay because that’s what he wants. He wants to feel his skin burn until his body is numb. He knows his skin will be red when he gets out, but he can’t find it in himself to care. He’s mentally and emotionally exhausted, and after the first thirty minutes with Derek Hale, he’s not sure he’s going to be able to do it for another three hundred sixty-four days.

This is going to be a _long_ year.


	3. 364 Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know some of you were put-off by the whole characterizing Stiles at "straight," but I explain more about that in this chapter. Also, no, there will not be one chapter for every single day. There's no way I'll be able to think of enough content to fill 365 days. In the beginning, though, there won't be as many large time gaps where nothing important really happens as there will be later on.
> 
> I'm surprised and blown away at the amount of positive feedback this is receiving. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter, too. I know there hasn't been much Derek/Stiles interaction yet, but we're getting there, don't worry :)

_Ms. Perry, I think that my partner, Derek Hale, and I should get a divorce because we are in no way, in any and every sense of the word, “compatible.” You see, he’s a huge, scary wolf who wants to rip out my insides at any chance that he can get. In fact, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me if I simply left a gallon of milk on the counter or forgot to take wipe off my shoes before I came into the house. Also, let’s not forget about the fact that all he does is glare at me like I’m the lowest on the food chain, when, in actuality, I’m pretty sure there are at least a handful of people worse than me. Like Ted Bundy. I know for a fact that I’m a hell of a lot better than him, but I think Derek probably puts us in the same category. He tried to choke me twice on the first day that I moved in, for god’s sake. And we’re lacking probably the most important thing that a marriage requires: attraction. You see, I’m not physically – or emotionally, for that matter – attracted to Derek, just as he is not attracted to me. I’m not denying that he’s a good-looking guy, but there’s no sexual thing going on, and I doubt there ever will be. Mostly due to the fact that Derek wants to kill me. I don’t know if I already said that, but even if I did, I feel it’s important to point out one more time: Derek wants to kill me! That in and of itself should be enough to approve of a divorce, Ms. Perry._

Stiles rolls over on the couch, eyes seeking out Derek in the dark. His face is turned away from Stiles, and he’s lying on his stomach, snoring lightly. And, so yeah, Stiles can’t deny that he definitely does find something about Derek’s appearance (and his appearance only, mind you) attractive. Yeah, so Stiles can notice when guys are attractive. But that doesn’t make him gay, and that doesn’t make this situation okay. He’s never thought of another guy’s body in sexual way. Well, okay, so he has. But he’s also pretty sure that most guys do at some point, just for curiosity’s sake. Right? He hopes so, at least.

But when he really lets himself think about it – and there’s really nothing else to do, so of course he does – he’s never thought of _anyone_ in a romantic or sexual way. Other than Lydia, that is. So that leaves a lot of room for him to be attracted to… you know, _other_ people. He’s not saying he’s attracted to Derek (even if he is remarkably good-looking, his personality kind of blocks out anything else), but he’s just saying that maybe he could be. The only guys he really ever talked to were his dad and Scott, and Scott was more of a brother than a friend, so it would’ve been incredibly weird to think of him that way. There was Danny, but Stiles didn’t talk to him that much since he was best friends with Jackson, and Jackson didn’t exactly like Stiles. So between his lack of friends and the war that went on when he reached the age that most boys decide who and what they like, Stiles never had the chance to notice anyone other than the girl he’s always had a crush on.

He groans and rolls back onto his back. There’s no way he’s going to be able to fall asleep in the same room as Derek. It’s too uncomfortable. He’s also pretty sure he won’t be able to fall asleep on the world’s hardest couch. Whoever designed these houses sure did a good job of making the place look good, but the couch isn’t the nicest place to be. Then again, whoever designed these houses probably didn’t think that anyone would sleep on the couches. The bed probably is really comfortable, especially considering that Derek fell asleep within seconds of turning off the lights and laying down. For a second, Stiles considers leaving the house, but he really doesn’t want to be put on Duty so early on, so he shuts his eyes and wills himself to sleep.

 

-

 

When he wakes up, Derek is already gone. Stiles finds that he is grateful for this.

He rolls off the couch haphazardly, landing on the floor with a thump. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t his best idea, but he’s still a little rattled. He was half expecting to wake up and find that it was all a dream. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have that kind of luck.

He sits up, sitting against the couch and crossing his legs. He pulls his laptop out from underneath the couch and powers it on, tapping his fingers impatiently against the keyboard while he waits. When the screen flicks to life, he clicks on the Internet icon, only to be greeted with a “No Service” message.

“What? No,” Stiles mutters, exiting out of the Internet and trying again. But once again, the “No Service” message pops up. Stiles groans loudly and shuts his laptop, pushing it back under the couch. “Of course,” he grumbles, standing and walking to the kitchen instead. “Fucking totalitarian government paranoid of us searching up escape routes or something.”

He opens the refrigerator door and is surprised to see that it’s full. For a crazy moment, he turns over the idea in his head that Derek actually went grocery shopping, but then he reasons with himself that Anne must have stocked up everyone’s kitchens. He shrugs and withdraws a gallon of milk, drinking straight from the jug and looking at what else there is. After deciding that he doesn’t want anything cold, he goes to the cabinets and finds all of them full, too. He smiles a little bit to himself and pulls out a bag of potato chips, opening it as he wanders back to the couch. He grabs the remote control to the TV and sits on the couch, turning the TV on and flipping through channels. Just like every other TV in North America, there are only a select number of channels that he’s able to watch, and most of them are shit, anyway, so he puts it on Nickelodeon and watches reruns of _SpongeBob_.

Half a bag of chips later, Stiles shuts the TV off and stands (leaving the chips on the couch, just to piss Derek off). He changes his clothes quickly before he decides that it’s time to get out of the house and look around.

Once outside, he can see that there are numerous other people walking down the streets, too. The sun is shining bright and hot over his head, and he has to squint to shade his eyes.

Stiles just wanders around for a bit, going nowhere in particular. He ventures to other streets, watching the people who have been living like this for a while and noting with some degree of surprise how… normal they all seem. The humans and werewolves alike. A majority of them are smiling and laughing with each other, enjoying the sunshine while they can. A lot of them even seem affectionate, as if they’ve become caring of one another. Stiles suspects that most of them genuinely are, that he probably would’ve cared about his partner, too, if it was anyone other than Derek.

Stiles walks around for about thirty minutes before he actually cares to know where he’s taken himself. He looks up to see that it’s the main building, where all the Officials work. And suddenly, Stiles feels the overwhelming need to call his father.

He pushes the doors open and finds that there’s a line of people waiting to talk to whichever Official they’re assigned to. Stiles groans inwardly, wondering how long the line will take, when he hears someone call his name from behind. He turns and sees Anne there, smiling at him with curiosity.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon,” she tells him, taking hold of his arm and guiding him away from the line, taking him out of anyone else’s sight.

“Where are you taking me? Are you going to kill me?”

Anne barks out a laugh at that. “I’m taking you to my office, Stiles.”

“You’re taking me to your _office_ to kill me?” When Anne only shoots him a slightly annoyed but amused glare, Stiles continues, “Look, all I want to do is call my dad. I don’t have time for another interrogation.”

“Oh, you’ve got a busy schedule, huh?” She smirks at him briefly before she turns and takes a key out of her pocket, using it to unlock the door they’ve stepped in front of. The little sign next to the door says “Cheyenne Florence,” and the fact that this woman has a first _and_ last name makes Stiles feel uneasy. Because she’s a real, living person, and she has family, and she seems _nice_ when she’s not doing that mysteriously cryptic werewolf crap, yet she’s working for a government that completely fucked up, and Stiles never realized how fucked up this system really is until he was forced into it. He wonders why she chose to work as an Official when there are still normal jobs being offered. More than ever, actually. One thing that this new system got right was lowering the unemployment rates.

Once inside the office, she gestures to Stiles to sit, and he obeys without argument. He knows that arguing with Anne doesn’t get him anywhere. She smiles approvingly and hands him a phone, which Stiles takes gratefully.

“I can call him?” he asks hopefully.

“That’s what you came here for, isn’t it?”

Stiles nods and smiles thankfully at her before dialing his home phone number. His dad picks up on the third ring.

“Dad?” Stiles asks, a lump already forming in his throat. God, he’s turned into such an emotional wreck. It’s only been, like, twenty hours since he last saw his dad, and he’s already tearing up at the mere idea of _talking_ to him. Maybe it’s because, after everything else, Stiles kind of expected that his privileges of calling his dad were going to be taken away, too.

“Stiles? Are you okay?” his dad asks, worry laced through his words.

“Yeah, Dad, I’m fine,” he lies. “How are you?”

“I’m okay. I’m hanging in there.” But his voice seems distracted, as if now maybe isn’t the best time for Stiles to be calling him. Stiles is surprised at how much that hurts.

“Should I – should I go? Are you busy, or…?”

“No, don’t worry about it,” his dad interjects quickly. “It’s just work stuff. So how’s living with Derek?”

Stiles doesn’t want to let the subject drop, but he also doesn’t want to badger his father, so he just answers the question. “Well, he doesn’t like me, and I don’t like him, so there’s that. But we’re on the same page about filing for a divorce.” There’s silence on the other end for a second, then Stiles asks, “Can I visit you?”

“Today?” his dad asks, mild surprise coloring his tone. “I really want to see you, son, I do, but… I’m caught up in some stuff right now. It might not be the best time.”

“Might not or is not? Because there’s a difference.”

“It’s not,” his dad says, and there’s a sense of finality to his voice that clearly tells Stiles that he won’t change his mind. “I’m really sorry, but there’s just… stuff.”

“I get it, Dad,” Stiles says quietly. And after the silence drags on for too long, Stiles says, “I have to go, okay? I’ll call you later.”

“Alright. I love you, Stiles.”

Stiles nods even though his dad can’t see him. “I love you, too.” And then he hangs up and hands the phone back to Anne.

“I want to show you something,” Anne says after she put the phone back where she got it from.

“Look, I’m not really in the mood, okay? So you can stop trying to help me or whatever it is you’re trying to do because all I really want to do is go home and sleep in my bed and eat my food with my dad.”

“Stiles,” Anne deadpans. “Just follow me.”

Under the weight of her stare, Stiles sighs and rubs a hand over his face. “Fine. I’ll follow you. Whatever.”

Anne only smiles cunningly at him and grabs his arm again, leading him out of her office. She turns to lock the door behind her before moving again, farther down the same hallway they came down to reach her office. They stop at the end of the hall in front of a large door that says “Confirmed Officials Only” on it in large capital letters.

“I don’t think I’m allowed in there,” he tells her uncertainly, side-eyeing her suspiciously. But she only waves away this concern with her hand and types something into what Stiles assumes is an electronic lock. The pad makes a beeping noise, and then Anne lifts up her badge and presses it to the lock. It makes a louder, longer beeping noise, and then the doors are opening in front of them. Anne guides Stiles inside, turning and locking the doors with another keypad from the inside once they’re on the other side.

Stiles takes in his surroundings. The walls are all cement, and there are two other Officials standing on either side of the doors. Stiles notices that there are guns in a holster around their waists, and he averts his eyes, not wanting them to shoot him just for staring. Because that’s definitely something they would do, he thinks.

“Where are we?” Stiles whispers to Anne.

Anne rolls her eyes. “You don’t have to whisper, Stiles.” She grabs him again and starts walking, pulling him with her. “This is the jail.”

“The – you wanted to show me the _jail_? Why in hell would you want to show me the _jail_?” And then realization hits. “Oh, my god, am I being arrested? Why am I being arrested? I’m pretty sure I’ve been on my best behavior–”

“Stiles, shut up,” Anne says, though there’s a smile in her voice. “You’re not being arrested. I just want to show you what happens to certain wolves when they go too far. For in case something happens with Derek.”

“Are you saying you want me to get Derek arrested?” Stiles asks incredulously.

“No, what I’m saying is that these wolves have less issues than Derek does, and they still ended up in here. So it’s highly possible that Derek will cross a line, and if that happens, I want you to know that you have options.”

“Like turning him in to the police? No, thank you, lady. He’d kill me as soon as he got out.”

They stop outside another door, and Anne types something in and presses her badge to the lock again.

“Is this jail only for wolves?” Stiles asks when it’s clear that she’s not going to respond.

“Yes. Wolves need more durable cells. They could break out of a regular jail cell the same way you would snap a branch.”

“So I’m the only human in here right now?”

“Right now, yes. Though humans often come in here and clean up as part of their Duty. You know how they make Duty sounds like hell at the Ceremonies?” She turns to him for a single second before looking forward again. “It’s actually a lot worse.”

“Oh, great,” he mutters as they come to a halt outside a cell.

“This is Erica,” Anne tells Stiles, gesturing to the girl in the cell. “She’s here because she tried to protest when she was partnered with someone who she didn’t want to be partnered with. She was accused of trying to overthrow the government.”

Stiles looks closely at her, sees her pretty blonde hair and her large eyes. She only rolls her eyes at Anne’s words, seeming un-phased and examining her nails with a kind of determination that makes Stiles think that she’s biting her tongue.

“This is Boyd,” Anne continues, moving to the cell next to Erica’s. “He lost control during a full moon and nearly killed his partner.”

Before Stiles has a chance to get a good look at Boyd, Anne’s dragging him to the last cell in the line.

“And this is Isaac. He tried to leave. He won’t tell us to where, but he tried to escape. And Mariah can’t have that.”

Isaac looks at Stiles in a considering way for a moment before tilting his head to the side and cocking up the side of his mouth. “You’re the one who was partnered with Derek,” he says, and there’s a hint of wonder lingering behind his words.

“I – yeah,” Stiles says, looking at Anne, not knowing if he’s allowed to talk to them or not.

Isaac only looks at him for another moment. “Interesting,” he says quietly before he goes back to sitting against the wall.

 Stiles looks to Anne again, uncertain what he’s supposed to do now. “So… what’s the point? Why am I here?”

“She gets off on showing us off like zoo animals,” a girl’s voice calls out, and Stiles knows it must be Erica. He inches closer to her cell, peering inside once again.

“I’d be careful with my words if I was you, Ms. Reyes,” Anne spits out, a certain ferociousness to her words that almost scares Stiles. Sure, he’s heard people speak like that before, but he’s never heard Anne speak so coldly in the short amount of time that he’s known her. Mostly, she just seems really sarcastic and slightly sadistic but somehow still friendly, but not  _mean_.

“Wait,” Stiles blurts out, moving even closer to the bars of Erica’s cell. He reaches out a hand to wrap around the bars when Anne shuffles nearer to him, grabbing his wrist in order to restrain it.

“The bars have electric volts running through them,” she explains when Stiles looks at her questioningly. “It wouldn’t be very smart to touch them.”

Stiles presses his lips together and nods but turns back to Erica, fisting his hands at his sides to restrain himself from reaching out again. “Didn’t you go to school with me?”

A mean laugh falls from Erica’s mouth, and suddenly, Boyd is laughing, too. So Stiles moves closer to Boyd’s cell instead since he never got a good look at him, anyway. He’s slumped against the far wall, mostly hidden in shadows.

“What? What’s so funny?” he asks, narrowing his eyes.

“We all went to school with you, Stiles,” Erica calls out again, and when Stiles goes back to her cell, he can see now that she’s also standing closer to the bars, a cruel smile twisting up the corners of her lips. “But you never noticed us, did you? Because we were the losers, right? The freaks. You weren’t so popular yourself, you know. But for some reason, we were a lot lower on the food chain than you. Why was that, Stiles?”

Stiles stares at her in astonishment for a second before opening his mouth to reply, but for once in his life, Stiles doesn’t know what to say. How does one even reply to something like that? _Sorry I was such a dick; I didn’t have anything against you, I just never saw you._ But Stiles suspects that that would only make matters worse. Because not ever _seeing_ them is the same as never noticing them when they’ve lived there all their lives. They must have attended elementary school together in addition to middle school. And now that he thinks about it, he thinks Isaac might have been in his second grade class. But he doesn’t remember. And he feels like shit about that because he _should_ remember, because what kind of asshole sees someone every single day for an entire year and not recognize them in school even though they attend the same school every year?

“I’m sorry,” Stiles finds himself whispering, surprised at how sincere they are on his tongue.

But Erica only laughs again. “It’s too late for that, isn’t it? Now we’re locked up in here, and you’re still out there. I guess we’re still lower on the food chain than you, right?” She presses even closer to the bars without touching them, something like a feat to Stiles. “But at least we don’t deny who or what we are. At least we can stand up for ourselves. I’m not so sure we could say the same about you. Not anymore.”

And Stiles can only stare at her. The truth in her words is suddenly sitting heavy on his chest, and he feels like he can’t breathe again. _Why_ does this keep happening? Why does he keep losing his breath and feeling like he can’t get enough air into his lungs? Essentially, he always finds himself asking the same question: _Why him_? Why does he have to be the one to be partnered with Derek? Why does he have to be the one that’s “special,” according to Anne? Why is he the one that’s getting all this information piled onto his chest from Officials and Outlaws alike?

And then Erica wraps her hands around the bars of the cell, and Stiles can tell the exact moment when the electricity courses through her body because her face goes from mean and angry to pained and angry in a single instance.

“Stiles, we should go before I get into trouble for bringing you in here,” Anne tells him, tugging on his arm again, more incessantly this time.

“Wait – aren’t you going to help her?” Stiles asks, flailing the arm that wasn’t currently in Anne’s grip at Erica behind the bars.

“There’s nothing I can do for her, Stiles, now let’s _go_.” She tugs harder at his arm, but he has to make sure that this girl is okay, so he looks at her one last time, sees that she has removed her hands from the bars. And she’s smiling at him – it’s not a happy one; it’s almost a mix between bitter and satisfied – and he suddenly knows what she’s trying to communicate to him without using words as she shuffles back to the spot she was sitting in when Stiles first saw her.

He knows that she’s trying to explain to him how they’re treated simply for speaking their opinion or making a mistake or trying to get away. She’s trying to tell him that it’s an extraordinary display of injustice, locking them in these cells for things that wouldn’t have made anyone bat an eye before this new government took over. She’s showing him the truth to her earlier words – that they’re locked up like zoo animals in this hell within a hell, and Stiles finds himself furious.

But he keeps his mouth shut and follows Anne back out of the jail and into the hallway that her office is located in.

“You can’t tell anyone that I showed you that,” Anne tells him in a fast breath.

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. What about the cameras? They’ll pick up that I went in there with you.”

“No, they won’t,” Anne tells him, flashing him a set of her pearly white teeth before pulling an object out of her pocket, and he recognizes it as one of the camera batteries. Then she flips her bright red hair over her shoulder and shoves her way back into her office, waving at Stiles through the window, as if signaling him away.

So he leaves with rage hanging heavy on his mind and Erica’s words still ringing in his ears.

 

-

 

He’s taking a nap when he hears the door open and slam shut so loudly that he startles awake, nearly falling off the couch.

He opens a single eye to see Derek – who doesn’t even spare him a glance, by the way – stalking into the kitchen and opening the refrigerator. Stiles groans loudly enough for Derek to here before standing and plopping himself back onto the couch, shutting his eyes again.

And then Derek’s voice is resonating across the room. “Where’d you go?” he barks, barely-concealed fury lingering behind his words.

“Uh… what?” Stiles asks eloquently, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and blinking a few times before deciding that, yeah, Derek is actually starting a conversation with him without shoving him into the wall first. Stiles files that as progress in his head.

“Are you deaf?” Derek spits, still standing in the kitchen.

“Well, I have been known to–”

“ _Where were you_?” Derek asks again, enunciating each world very, very clearly.

“Why do you care?” Stiles counters, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

For a moment, Derek just stares at Stiles as if he’s completely stupid, before he says, “In case you weren’t aware, someone always comes to the houses on their second day of residency and takes personal records. And you weren’t here. So what was I supposed to say to Jacob Roberts when he asked where you were, huh? I had to tell him that I didn’t know, and that got _me_ in trouble because, as partners, we’re supposed to always know where the other is. Were you even listening at the Ceremony? Honestly.” Derek huffs at the end of his little spiel, as if he was explaining all this to a three-year-old with French as a native tongue.

“Well, sorry for the inconvenience. But what was I supposed to? I have ADHD. I get bored. I can’t be locked up in here all day. And I forget things easily,” he tells Derek, which is a complete lie, but it’s not like he’s going to admit to Derek that he actually wasn’t paying attention to the whole second half of the Ceremony.

“It’s cute that you think I can’t tell when you lie,” Derek announces, and he’s still standing in the kitchen, as if the mere thought of being in the same room as Stiles disgusted him or something.

“Look, _Derek_ –”

“No, you look, _Stiles_ ,” he grits out, finally moving from the kitchen in order to step in front of Stiles in a pose that Stiles finds way too intimidating. “Jacob is coming back tomorrow. And you better be here. Because I had to cover for you, and don’t think for a second that I’m going to be able to do that twenty-four seven due to your own fucking stupidity, got it? So you stay here. You don’t leave until you talk to Jacob Roberts. If you do, I will break each of your fingers one by one. Understood?”

“I don’t think you could break all ten of my fingers without somebody catching on. I mean, all ten fingers? That’s pretty obvious, Derek. It pretty much screams ‘The person I’m living with is abusing me.’ And you keep talking this talk about hurting me and how it isn’t against the Rules, but I’m also pretty sure that breaking all ten of my freaking fingers would get you into at least a little hot water.”

Derek is suddenly catching Stiles’s hand in his own and grasping one of his fingers painfully tight, bending it backwards slightly in a way that suggests that Derek most certainly would not hesitate to make good on his threat, taking no regard of the Rules.

“Do you want to test out that little theory?” Derek hisses.

“No, no, I’m good, actually,” Stiles tells him as calmly as he can, given the fact that he’s genuinely afraid of Derek snapping his finger, if only by accident. Because that’s a definite possibility. Once Derek lets go of him and backs up, Stiles says, “You know, I was actually thinking that we made some kind of breakthrough with the whole Not Hurting Stiles upon first glance thing. But the whole Hurting Stiles To Threaten Him To Do Derek’s Bidding isn’t a much better alternative, in my opinion. In fact, I prefer the former. I prefer neither, to be honest. I’m really disappointed. I thought we established a set of rules that prevents you from hurting me.”

“Really? I don’t remember that. The only rules I remember are that you sleep on the couch and stop being so annoying.”

“I don’t think I agreed to the second one. In fact, I’m positive that I vetoed it.”

“Rule number three can be no vetoing my rules.” He smirks at Stiles for a second. “See? We are making progress.”

“That’s not the kind of progress that I was hoping to achieve,” Stiles mutters. “Hey, what time is it, anyway?”

The smirk turns to a glare in a matter of seconds. “Do I look like a clock to you? There’s one right behind you. It’s not that hard to read it.”

Stiles rolls his eyes but looks anyway for the sake of avoiding further argument to see that it’s six in the evening.

“There is literally nothing to do,” Stiles complains, sighing into the space of the room. “Seriously, what do they expect us to do all day?”

“Not my problem,” Derek tells him.

“What have you been doing all day?” Stiles asks, more out of genuine curiosity than anything else.

“None of your business,” he replies shortly.

“Oh, come on! You made me tell where I was–”

“Actually,” Derek interrupts. “You didn’t tell me anything. And I really don’t care. So how about we both keep our own secrets?”

“But you said we’re supposed to know where the other is!” Stiles protests, throwing up his arms in exasperation. Seriously, does this guy even ever hear what he’s saying? He’s a living, walking contradiction.

“Well, we’ll worry about that some other time because I’m not telling you where I was. And I know you don’t want to tell me where you were.”

“What? How do you know that?”

“I didn’t until you just told me,” Derek replies in a satisfied tone that makes Stiles want to cringe all over the place. Stiles opts to not reply to that and instead reaches for the remote and turns the television on. The channel’s still on Nickelodeon, and reruns of _SpongeBob_ are still playing. “If you’re so bored all the time, why don’t you go to College?”

Stiles frowns slightly and turns to see that Derek is pointedly not looking at him, holding a large book in his lap and flipping through pages so fast that he’s obviously not even reading them. “Is that you caring?” Stiles asks, smirking.

Derek does glance up from his book then, glaring and grimacing the way that only Derek can. “Not about you. If you go to College, then you’ll be gone for longer periods of time, which is good for me. Most people do go to College once they’ve been partnered, you know.”

“You don’t go.” But then Stiles remembers that Derek wasn’t there when he woke up, and he had only just gotten home recently. “Do you?”

Derek barks out a laugh at that. “No,” he replies shortly. “So you should. You know Jacob’s going to ask you tomorrow about why you’re not going.”

“I just don’t want to,” Stiles says, and he suddenly feels extremely defensive. He doesn’t have to explain himself or his decisions to Derek; it’s none of his business. He just doesn’t want to attend a school where all they teach are the four core classes with additional academic classes and nothing that interests him. He doesn’t want to attend a school where all the teachers act like they have something stuck up their ass, and none of the students are even allowed to talk. He’d rather sit in a room with Derek all day than go to College.

Derek must sense the change in Stiles’s mood because he lets the subject drop, dropping his eyes and flipping through more pages. Stiles focuses his eyes back on the TV and lays down on the couch, watching Plankton fail again and again at trying to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula as his eyelids begin to feel heavy.

 

-

 

He doesn’t know how, but he slept for a solid twenty hours. He wakes up around ten in the morning to the scent of bacon crackling in the kitchen. He sits up on the couch, rubbing his eyes and stretching his arms out while yawning. When he turns to peer into the kitchen, he sees that Derek is there, standing over the stove and shuffling a few pieces of meat around on a skillet.

Stiles can only stare, wide-eyed, for a moment because _Derek Hale is actually cooking breakfast_. Stiles already knows that Derek’s not planning on sharing, but for some reason, it still makes Stiles feel uneasy that he’s cooking at all. Because that really drives it in that Derek is a person who eats and drinks and breathes and lives, just like Stiles. As much as it makes Stiles seem like the biggest asshole in the world, he never really thought of Derek as a person before. Just like he never thought of Anne being a person. Because they’re both so very different from Stiles that it’s hard to imagine them being actual people, but they’re also both so very different from each other. They both have personalities and families and interests and favorite foods.

Stiles is racking his brain to say something sarcastic to Derek when there’s a knock at the door. He turns to examine the door, trying to decide if he should answer it or not, when Derek shouts at him, “That’s Jacob. Go answer it.”

Stiles nods once and stumbles out of his cocoon of blankets in order to answer the door. He contemplates changing for a brief second, but then there’s another knock at the door, and Derek is shouting at Stiles again, so Stiles decides against it and throws open the door.

Jacob smiles at Stiles a little before he enters the house, brushing past Stiles quickly. Stiles always got the impression that Jacob was quiet and shy and unconfident, though still forceful, if his position in the government meant anything. So even though Jacob wasn’t exactly abrasive or harsh like Mariah, Stiles still has to be careful about what he says. One wrong word could probably result in him being thrown into jail.

“Mr. Stilinski,” Jacob says as way of greeting, making his way to the couch, where he frowns at the collection of blankets and pillows piled on it. Stiles rushes to throw the items onto the bed, ignoring the glare Derek is shooting him from the kitchen because, honestly, what else is he supposed to do? Jacob takes a seat on the couch, gesturing for Stiles to sit on the bed.

Stiles hesitates because he’s never touched Derek’s bed before, and he doesn’t really _want_ to. It’ll feel too weird, sitting on the space that Derek sleeps. But it’s not like Stiles has exactly has a choice, so he just sits and continues to ignore Derek’s glare as it intensifies.

“Mr. Hale,” Jacob says, inclining his head a bit to see Derek, still in the kitchen, though the bacon is no longer sizzling.

“Mr. Roberts.” Derek nods once in lieu of greeting and smiles a tight-lipped smile.

“Why don’t you join us, Derek?” Jacob asks, and Stiles can see how Derek’s whole posture changes, how he stands a little straighter and the set of his shoulders tenses a bit.

“Why? I mean, I did my records yesterday.”

“What are you going to do, stand in the kitchen until we’re finished talking?” Jacob counters, gesturing to the bed once more, signaling Derek to sit next to Stiles, and this time, Stiles is the one who tenses because he was already nervous enough, but if Derek is sitting right next to him, he’s not sure he’ll be able to answer all of these questions so easily.

But Derek can’t really say no, so Stiles stares at the floor as Derek moves to sit next to him. Stiles feels the bed dip under Derek’s weight to his left, and Stiles takes a huge reassuring breath before looking up at Jacob again.

“Okay, Mr. Stilinski, I just have to make sure your current records are still correct, and then I have to ask you some new questions pertaining to your new situation.”

Stiles swallows down the lump in his throat and nods. Jacob rattles off some basic information about Stiles – his full name, his birthday, his hair and eye color, his weight and height, languages he can speak – before he starts asking actual questions.

“It says here that your emergency contact is your dad. I’m going to need a second emergency contact.”

“Uh…” Stiles blanks. He doesn’t really _have_ anyone he could use as a second emergency contact. “I don’t… There’s my friend Scott. But I don’t know his number. Or his address. Or where he is.”

Jacob narrows his eyes questioningly. “You wouldn’t happen to be talking about Scott McCall, would you?”

Stiles’ eyes widen in surprise. “Actually, yeah. But I haven’t talked to him in, like, years. But I don’t really know who else, so… yeah.”

“Alright…” Jacob writes something down before looking back up at Stiles. “Your mother is deceased, is that correct?”

The lump is back in his throat, as it always is at the mention of his mother, so he just nods, not trusting his voice.

“Okay, and it says here that you have ADHD.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, cringing at the way his voice breaks slightly. “Yes, that’s correct,” he confirms.

“And it says you’re not attending College?”

“That’s also correct,” Stiles tells him.

“May I ask why not?”

Stiles shrugs. “I just don’t want to.” He doesn’t really want to go more into it because he knows he can’t talk to Jacob Roberts about how he doesn’t like the schooling system that he and Mariah had set up.

Jacob considers him for a moment before nodding, writing more stuff down on his clipboard. “How are you and Derek getting along?”

The question takes Stiles by surprise. He finds himself looking to the side, and Derek is looking right back at him, and Stiles thinks that maybe Derek’s trying to communicate something to him with the way his eyes are staring right into Stiles’, but he doesn’t know what Derek wants him to say, so he just nods and tells Jacob, “Yeah, we’re fine. You know, getting used to it and all.”

Jacob nods slowly. When he’s done writing again, he asks, “Do you get along with Derek’s pack?”

“Uh, I don’t know who’s in Derek’s pack,” Stiles admits, and he can tell by the way that Derek tenses next to him that this wasn’t the right answer. Stiles guesses that that’s something he’s supposed to know and that Derek probably answered that question differently.

“Is that so?” Jacob eyes Derek now, squinting slightly through his glasses.

“Uh, well….” Stiles looks at Derek, which was a bad idea because Derek is glaring at him with so much hatred that it almost physically hurts.

“What Stiles means to say–” Derek begins, but Jacob swiftly stops him with a raise of his hand.

“Thank you, Mr. Hale, but I’m here to talk to Stiles, not you.”

In his peripheral vision, Stiles can see Derek press his lips together tightly, and he looks pissed, though at Stiles or Jacob, he doesn’t know.

Jacob asks him a few more questions before standing to leave. At the door, however, he turns back to Stiles. “Mr. Stilinski, I expect to see you at Duty tonight, yeah?”

“What? Why?” Stiles asks, genuinely confused.

“You weren’t here when I came yesterday. It was quite an inconvenience for me to make the trip back here today. I have other more important matters to deal with.” And with that, he walks out the door, shutting it with perhaps too much force behind him.

Stiles groans when he’s gone and drops his face into his hands, rubbing at his temples. Before the realization even hits him that he actually has Duty on only the third day, Derek is already talking angrily behind him.

“I can’t believe you told him that you don’t know who’s in my pack. You are actually stupid.”

And Stiles is _so_ not in the mood for Derek’s utter shit right now, so he turns around and faces Derek with anger written all over his face. “Don’t you dare blame this on me!” he yells, surprised at the conviction in his voice. “ _You’re_ the one who apparently lied about me knowing who’s in your pack yesterday when I wasn’t there. _You’re_ the one who never _told_ me that I’m supposed to know who’s in your pack! _You’re_ the one who’s too busy trying to scare me every fucking second and ignore me that you neglect to tell me this information that’s pretty important for me to know! And _you’re_ the one who’s been nothing but a giant dick to me for the past three days for absolutely no reason! So, no, I am _not_ letting you pin this on me!”

Derek only stares at Stiles with anger and something that Stiles thinks is actually _amusement_ , that bastard, in his eyes. “You’re the one who could have actually been here yesterday instead of doing god knows what. This all could’ve been prevented if you were only here, Stiles. But you weren’t. So, yes, it is your fault.”

They just stare at each other for a moment, anger in both of their eyes. Then Derek says, “How do you know Scott McCall?”

Stiles’ brows knit together in confusion. “Um… because he’s my best friend?”

“Your best friend that you haven’t talked to in years?”

“Look, it’s none of your business, okay?”

“Actually,” Derek says calmly, moving back to his bed and sitting against the wall on it, grabbing the book he was looking at earlier and flipping through it again. “It is. Scott McCall is a very important figure in the werewolf community.”

Stiles waits for Derek to elaborate, but he doesn’t. So Stiles just rubs his hands over his face and sighs loudly, shoving his feet into his shoes.

“Where are you going?”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “I’m going to go tell Anne that I have Duty.”

“Wait,” Derek says, and Stiles turns to see Derek jumping off the bed. Once on the floor, Derek looks unsure, as if he doesn’t know where he’s supposed to go from there, so he just stands in the middle of the room, looking at Stiles. “I don’t care what she says to you, but you can’t trust her.”

“Who, Anne?” Stiles asks, confused once again. He feels like he’s always in a constant state of confusion around Derek. Or any werewolves, for that matter.

“She’ll do anything to get you onto her side and pretend like she’s one of the good guys, but she’s not. Do you understand? She’s just as bad as Mariah is.”

“I don’t think anyone’s as bad as Mariah.”

“Stiles, I’m serious,” Derek says. “She doesn’t like me. And she’ll try to turn you against me.”

“I already don’t like you,” Stiles interjects. “It’s not like that’ll be a hard feat to achieve.”

Derek glowers are Stiles before continuing. “Just be careful with her. Don’t do something you’ll regret. Like join forces with her to kill me or something.”

Stiles stares at Derek, seeing the way he seems to be almost… pleading. And that’s enough for Stiles to bite his tongue when instinct tells him to reply sarcastically, and he just nods instead, turning his back to Derek and walking out of the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments, and I'll try to answer them the best I can!


	4. 363 Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sure do love me some angst. Is it obvious? My philosophy is that the more angst, the happier the ending, am I right? :) There will be happier parts, I promise, and there will be fluff all in good time. I wrote this chapter a grand total of two and a half times because I couldn't seem to get it the way I wanted it to be, so I hope that I turned out all right!

When he told Anne that he was given Duty, she just smiled at him in amusement, and Stiles knew that that should’ve put him off at least a little bit, but he didn’t really expect anything else at that point.

Stiles wants to blame it all on her. She was the one who had been talking to him yesterday when he should’ve been at his house, after all. But he knows that it wasn’t really her fault. She couldn’t have known if Stiles had already met with Jacob or not. So he decides to blame it solely on himself (and Derek) as she scribbles down an address on a piece of paper and hands it to him.

“That’s where you’ll meet the Duty Officer. Whenever you get Duty, you meet with him at seven o’clock in the evening.”

Stiles’ eyes find the clock over Anne’s head and sees that it reads three in the afternoon. He sighs. At least Duty gave him something to do. How’s he going to occupy himself for the next four hours? Avoiding Derek’s glare isn’t exactly his favorite pastime.

“Once there, he’ll assign you and everyone else who got Duty a task, and you’ll perform that task until it’s complete or until he tells you to stop.”

Stiles nods, taking the paper from her hands. He realizes that he has no clue where this address is, and it strikes him that he isn’t even aware of what his own street name is. He’s about to ask Anne when he realizes how stupid that’ll sound and that she’ll probably make fun of him to no end, so he opts instead to ask, “How many people are usually given Duty?”

“About fifty a day, maybe.” At Stiles’s surprised look, she smiles a genuine smile. “People try to stay well-behaved around here. The Officer isn’t exactly… an agreeable person.”

Stiles nods once before he finds himself blurting out, “Can I call my dad again?”

Anne eyes him sadly. “You’re not supposed to when you have Duty.”

“Oh,” he breathes out, dropping his gaze to his feet.

After a few quiet moments, Stiles hears Anne sigh in defeat. “Oh, what the hell? Fine. But don’t tell anyone.” She opens her drawer and hands him the phone she keeps there once again.

Stiles smiles brightly at her nods. “You know, I’m hearing you say that a lot. ‘Don’t tell anyone.’”

“Well, I’m bending a lot of rules for your sake, Mr. Stilinski.”

“I thought we were on a first-name basis,” he teases before he grows suddenly serious, pausing in the middle of dialing his father’s phone number. “Why _are_ you breaking rules for me, anyway?”

“Bending, not breaking,” Anne corrects, that smirk still on her face like a permanent fixture. “Besides, you’re not technically on Duty yet. It’s not seven.”

“But still,” Stiles hedges, genuinely curious. “I don’t get it. I’m sure if I had any other Official, they wouldn’t be this nice to me. Even though you are sort of a jerk sometimes. Actually, most of the time.”

“Do you want to make that phone call or night, Stiles?” she asks him, though she’s smiling, and there was no real threat in her voice.

Stiles decides to drop the subject since it doesn’t appear that Anne’s going to answer him. He finishes tapping in his dad’s number and holds the phone to his hear, listening to the ringing.

Before his dad picks up, Stiles hears Anne say, “I guess I just have a soft spot for you.” And when Stiles looks up, he expects to see that ever-present gleam of amusement in her eyes, but her face is softer and more sincere than he’s ever seen it. He’s a bit taken aback, and he wonders _why_ she has a soft spot for him, but then his dad is answering the phone, and he doesn’t have time to ask her, so he focuses instead on his dad’s voice. And Stiles sees as Anne’s face goes back to the way it always is, entertained and sarcastic and friendly.

“Stiles?” his dad asks from the other end, and there’s a hint of relief in his voice.

“Hi, Dad,” Stiles says, smiling slightly to himself. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah. It’s good to hear your voice. I was starting to think you were mad at me.”

“Mad at you? Why would I be mad at you?” Stiles asks, honestly confused.

“Because I told you not to come over yesterday,” his dad explains in a way that makes it sound like Stiles should obviously know this. And, okay, so Stiles was a little pissed about that, but he also isn’t one to hold grudges, and his dad knows that.

Stiles is about to reply when he can hear what sounds like a crash through the phone’s receiver. Stiles stands a little straighter, more alert. “Dad? Are you okay? Who’s there?”

“Don’t worry about it,” his dad hurries to say, but then the noise on his father’s end of the phone is being muffled, as if he’s holding the phone against his chest the way he does when he used to have to tell Stiles to stop talking or turn down the volume on the TV or to scold him for doing something stupid while making a phone call. He can hear words being shouted, but it’s too static-y to make out the words. “Sorry about that,” his dad tells him when he’s back on the phone.

“Dad, who is that?” Stiles asks, still on his guard. He knows that, logically, he can’t do anything to help his father if he was in any sort of danger, but it’s just instinct, moving into a protective stance like that at the thought of something being wrong with his dad.

“It’s no one–”

“ _Dad_ ,” Stiles interrupts because he’s so fucking _tired_ of no one ever telling him anything. Not knowing things seems to play out worse for him than knowing things actually would. And this is his father, his father who has always told him everything, and Stiles wants to know, and he _deserves_ to know, god damn it. He is pissed, and he is going to get answers. “I’ve been having a pretty shitty week. I got Duty because Derek is a complete asshole who thinks he’s smarter and better than everyone else, and, oh, did I mention that Derek is borderline abusive? Everyone in this place is completely fucked up, and they’re all so secretive, and I’m pretty much hating my life right now. You’re the one constant in my life, and even you’re being cryptic, and it’s making me so angry because _I deserve to know things_.”

The end of his rant is met with silence, and for a second, Stiles actually thinks that his dad hung up on him. But then he’s talking, so softly that Stiles almost doesn’t catch it. “I’m sorry. But there… there are things that you just can’t know right now, Stiles.”

And that’s like a punch to the gut. Because even after everything that he’s just told his dad, he still won’t tell him _anything_.

“We’ll talk about when you visit, okay, Stiles? I just can’t–”

“And when am I supposed to visit you?” he snaps.

The silence on the other end is enough of an answer for Stiles. And he just doesn’t understand why his dad is being so fucking thick. So he hangs up the phone and throws it against the wall, pissed off and seriously not in the mood to go to Duty. All he wants to do is cry. But he can’t, not in front of Anne. He can’t let himself be so _weak_ all the time. But that’s all he is. He’s just weak. He’s not a werewolf. He doesn’t have super-strength of heightened senses or the ability to heal swiftly, and he can’t rip out someone’s throat with his teeth just because he’s in a pissy mood; he’s not as strong as Scott was before he was a werewolf, and he saw how muscular everyone was in the locker room in his middle school gym class, even as seventh graders. And he had nothing on them. He knows he’s gotten stronger, and he know he can throw a good punch if he needs to, but it’s not like he could effectively hurt someone for a long period of time.

Not only is he physically weak, but he’s an emotional wreck. He’s been crying every single day since his birthday, and he feels like he doesn’t even know who he is anymore. He’s not as sarcastic, and he’s not ever as happy, and he misses having a friend. He realizes that he misses his mom, and then his throat’s constricting, and he has to sit down because he can’t breathe, so he braces himself against Anne’s desk and sits on top of it.

He feels Anne place a gentle hand on his back, rubbing circles there, and Stiles focuses extremely hard on just breathing in and out and getting enough breath into his lungs.

After a few minutes, Stiles’s breathing is back under control, and Anne removes her hand from his back. She steps in front of Stiles and places her hands on her hips. When Stiles raises his head, he sees that she’s smirking at him, though her eyes are gentler.

“How,” she says, tapping her fingers against her hip, “do you propose I explain to Mariah that I need a new phone?”

Stiles shrugs, but he feels the corner of his mouth tilt upwards, anyway. “Tell them it was an accident? Mariah’s not a wolf. She won’t know you’re lying.”

“Mariah always knows when someone’s lying, Stiles. Don’t think you can ever fool her.”

Stiles’ brows knit together as he considers Anne. He notices for the first time the barely-there scar running from the right corner of her lip to her earlobe, so faded that Stiles has never seen it before. That gives him pause, and he wonders briefly how the scar got there.

“You should go back home and sleep until you have to go to Duty,” Anne suggests.

Stiles shakes his head. “No, I’m okay.”

“Stiles. Trust me. Duty is no walk in the park. If you’re already feeling like shit, then you should rest. You could be up all night, for all you know. Sleep.”

And once again, Stiles finds himself baffled as to why Anne seems to be consistently helping him for no reason. But he only nods and stands up, shooting her a grateful smile before exiting her office and making his way back to his house.

He’s surprised to find that Derek’s not there when he enters. And, really, where does Derek even go? How does Derek, King of Brooding, have more of a social life than Stiles? But Stiles doesn’t dwell on this for too long. As soon as his head hits the pillow on the couch, he’s welcoming sleep.

 

-

 

For the second day in a row, Stiles is awoken by a slamming door.

He groans loudly in protest, rolling over and pulling the blanket up farther over his head. “Okay, if I’m following all of your rules, you have to follow some of mine, too,” he yells out to Derek, sleep slurring his words.

“You’re breaking rule number two right now by talking to me, so you’re not following all of my rules,” Derek shoots back at him. Stiles hears the refrigerator open and close in the kitchen.

“Rule number four can be no slamming the door,” Stiles continues anyway, pretending he didn’t hear Derek.

Derek is now walking into the main room, and Stiles can feel more than see Derek’s glare. “No.”

“It’s not even a hard rule to follow!” Stiles argues, sitting up on the couch. It’s obvious he’s not going to be getting much sleep with Derek there, so he decides to not even try.

Derek only glowers at Stiles for another minute or two, jaw clenched as if he would like nothing more but to hit him right now, before he says through gritted teeth, “Fine, Stiles. If it’ll make you stop talking to me, I’ll stop slamming the door. Happy?”

Stiles grins to himself, counting this as a small victory. In his mind, getting Derek to actually agree to not something is huge progress. Even if he is only doing it for his own benefit. “Monumentally.”

But then Derek glances at the clock above Stiles’s head, and his eyes go suddenly wide, and Stiles doesn’t understand why, so he turns and looks at the clock, too, to see that it’s seven-thirty in the evening. And for another few seconds, it doesn’t hit Stiles, but then he remembers that he’s supposed to be at the address that Anne gave him at seven o’clock, and it’s thirty minutes past seven, and he’s going to be _late_ , and the Duty Officer is probably going to rip him to shreds, wolf or not.

“Shit!” Stiles shouts, jumping off the couch and rushing to the door. For the second time that day, he really wishes he could change his clothes, but he figures he’ll probably get the most disgusting task due to the fact that he’s late, so these clothes are probably going to be burned, anyway.

He faintly hears the word “dumbass” and muffled chuckles from Derek before Stiles is out the door and running down the street, pulling out the piece of paper from his pocket and reading the address. And then he feels even _stupider_ , if that’s even possible, because why didn’t he ask Derek if he knew where this place was? He’s going to get in so much trouble, and now he has no clue where he’s going, so he’s going to be even later than he already is.

After making multiple wrong turns, he finally finds the building that’s written on paper, and he found it in less than ten minutes, which Stiles counts as an accomplishment. The building looks almost exactly the same as the main building, but it’s a bit smaller and the walls are painted a darker shade of beige, almost brown. He takes a deep breath to steady himself before walking up the steps and pushing open the large doors.

There are at least fifty other people in there, as Anne said there would be, and they all turn at the sound of the door opening. They’re sitting on top of desks and chairs placed in purposeless positions around the room or standing.

And then there’s the Duty Officer himself. He’s standing on top of a platform that constitutes as some kind of stage, his arms crossed and his glare burning a hole in Stiles’s head.

“You must be Mr. Stilinski,” he drawls, and Stiles doesn’t really know what one is supposed to say when addressed by the Duty Officer, so he only nods feebly. And then the Officer crooks a finger, gesturing for Stiles to join him on the stage, and Stiles swallows down the lump in his throat and does as asked, ignoring everyone’s stares as he does so. They could at least try to hide the fact that they are staring, Stiles thinks. Very rude.

Once he’s on the stage, he stares at the man expectantly, who wraps an arm around Stiles’ shoulders. Stiles tenses. The last time someone wrapped an arm around his shoulders, it was followed by Jacob Roberts announcing that he would be partnered with Derek. The action doesn’t provide comfort to Stiles anymore.

“Why don’t you tell everyone why you’re late?” the man asks Stiles, but his words are so quiet that Stiles has to be the only one who heard – well, Stiles and every werewolf in the room, that is.

“I fell asleep,” Stiles answers truthfully because he doesn’t know if this guy is a werewolf or not, so he doesn’t know if he can tell he’s lying. He decides to play it safe.

“You fell asleep?” he asks, as if he quite can’t believe it. “Well, I was just about to dismiss everyone, since I assigned them all their Duties while you were _sleeping_.” And then he does just that: he dismisses everyone else, and some of them remain in the building, moving down a hallway on either side of them, and some leave the building, presumably to go to the main building to perform a task there. And then it’s only Stiles and this man alone in the room, and that makes Stiles extremely nervous.

“Are you going to kill me?” Stiles blurts out, and he really has to stop making it a habit of asking that question of every adult he finds himself alone with because they end up laughing at him every time.

“Of course I’m not going to kill you. I just want to talk. Why don’t we have a seat, Stiles?” 

And Stiles assumes that that’s a rhetorical question, so he doesn’t answer, only follows the man when he steps off the stage and takes a seat in one of the chairs that’s placed randomly around the room. He gestures to the chair sitting across from him, so Stiles takes the hint and sits. He fidgets his thumbs in his lap, waiting patiently for the man to begin talking.

“Let me tell you, Stiles Stilinski, I’ve been very interested to talk to the young man who was partnered with nephew. I just never imagined this would be the way we’d meet.”

Stiles snaps his head up in shock at that, staring at the Officer with wide eyes. This man is Derek Hale’s _uncle_? This is _Peter Hale_?

“Ah, so you’re surprised,” Peter says with a smile. “I don’t look much like I did in those pictures in the newspaper, do I?”

Stiles shakes his head, finding himself at a loss of words again.

“Well, that’s a long and tedious story, so I’m not going to tell it. I’m much more interested about you, Mr. Stilinski – Stiles, if I may. I find it interesting that it was you, of all people, who Mariah had chosen to marry to Derek.”

When Stiles is able to find his voice, he tells Peter, “Look, I know how this is going to go, alright? You’re going to tell me all about how I’m ‘special,’ and how ‘I should be careful,’ and how Mariah hates Derek, blah, blah, blah. It’s all old news, okay? I know it all. I’ve been there, done that, bought the fucking t-shirt. I don’t want your help, and I don’t want you to try to coerce me to be ‘on your side’ or whatever because I’m pretty sure I’m already dealing with that with someone else, and I don’t need to add you to my ever-growing pile of horseshit, thank you very much. So if you will, can you just tell me my Duty and let me go do it?”

Peter stares at Stiles in open amusement. “Actually, Stiles, I don’t think you’re special at all. You’re just one boy who happened to be partnered with Derek. Why would that make you special? In my very humble opinion, I think it makes you quite the opposite. Mariah wouldn’t pair Derek with someone who she thought was special. _Special_ would’ve been partnering Derek with a fighter. _Special_ would’ve been partnering Derek with someone who Derek already hated for some unfathomable reason. _Special_ would’ve even been partnering Derek with someone he would grow to love. But _you_ , Stiles – you’re nothing special. Derek doesn’t hate you more than he already hates most people. Derek doesn’t love you, and he won’t. You’re not a warrior. You’re just a boy.”

And, okay, Stiles was already aware of his lack of specialness, thank you very much. He didn’t exactly need Derek’s uncle to point it out to him, too. 

“Furthermore, I don’t care if you’re ‘careful’ or not. Well, the less careful you are, the more you’ll end up here, which would probably be trouble for me, since you’ve already proved to be a bit of a smart aleck. So I guess I do care if you’re careful, but not for your benefit.”

Stiles isn’t surprised that Derek isn’t the only Hale who’s ridiculously self-centered.

“I don’t care if Mariah hates Derek. It’s true that she does, but that doesn’t concern you, so why would I try to tell you that? I’m not here to offer you my help, Stiles. That sounds like entirely too much work on my part. And also, I don’t take sides. The only side I’m on is my own. I’m not trying to start another war. Don’t try to assume things about me based on what you know about some other people in this government because I don’t have time for such nonsense. In fact, this whole conversation has been a waste of time.” He stands then, and that confuses Stiles because Peter was the one who _wanted_ to talk to Stiles, so why is he making it seem like this conversation was his fault? “You can leave,” Peter says once Stiles is standing with a wave of his hand, not facing Stiles.

“I – what?” Stiles asks, growing even more confused, his brows knitting together.

“Leave,” Peter repeats, turning to look at Stiles. “Consider this a warning. A kind thing of me to do, since I don’t normally dismiss people who have been assigned Duty. But I’ve had enough of you. Next time, though, don’t expect me to be so nice.”

Stiles wants to laugh at that because Peter has definitely been anything _but_ nice, but he suspects that that wouldn’t be a wide decision. So he simply nods and turns to the doors to leave, but Peter’s earlier words won’t seem to leave his head.

_You’re not a warrior. You’re just a boy._

 

-

 

Stiles enters the house to find Derek lounging on the bed in nothing but a pair of sweatpants, eyes trained on the television.

“Oh, dude? Not cool. Put on some clothes,” he tells him as he takes off his shoes, making his way to the kitchen. He hasn’t eaten all day, and he suddenly finds himself absolutely ravenous.

He sees Derek frowning as he pulls out a pan and searches for bread. A grilled cheese sounds like absolute heaven at the moment. “Why aren’t you at Duty?” he asks, making no move whatsoever to pull on a shirt.

“I am so not talking to you until you put a shirt on. Can that be rule number five? No talking while in any state of undress?”

Derek rolls his eyes but jumps off the bed and grabs a shirt out of the drawer, pulling it on as Stiles retrieves a pack of pre-sliced cheese from the fridge, along with some butter.

“So?” Derek prompts, an obvious hint of annoyance in his voice.

“The Officer let me leave. Apparently, he doesn’t like me so much. Oh, yeah, and that _Officer_ happens to also be your uncle. Thanks for letting me know, by the way.” He opens the container of butter and spreads some on one slice of bread before placing it on the pan, turning on the burner.

Derek only shrugs shamelessly. “I figured it wasn’t important. You found out soon enough.” They’re both silent for a minute, Stiles working fastidiously on his grilled cheese and Derek seemingly to consider Stiles, which Stiles pointedly ignores. “Why did he let you leave early? Did he even make you do anything?”

“No. He just said that he’d had enough of me. He told me it was a very kind thing of him to do, but he said it very _un_ kindly, mind you.”

They both fall silent again. Derek goes back to his bed and continues watching TV, but Stiles can feel his gaze flicker to him every few minutes or so. Stiles sighs but doesn’t say anything, only continues making his food. When he’s done with his sandwich, he looks up at Derek.

“Do you want a grilled cheese?” he asks.

Derek turns and looks at him, frowning in what appears to confusion. “What? Why would I want that?”

“Well, look, if we’re going to be living together for at least a year, we might as well tolerate each other, right? So I’m taking the initiative, and I’m reaching out and asking if you would like a grilled cheese. It’s not like I’m offering to bathe you or anything.”

Derek barks out a laugh at that but quickly schools his face back into its usual grimace. “No. I don’t want a grilled cheese.”

Stiles rolls his eyes at Derek. God, could he _be_ any more stubborn? But he shrugs anyway and retrieves a plate, plopping his sandwich on it and piling the dirty dishes into the sink. He goes back into the fridge and pulls out the milk, pouring some it into a cup.

Then he realizes that this is a new gallon of milk, nearly full. That means that Derek must’ve gone grocery shopping.

He shakes the thought out of his head and moves to the couch, laying down and focusing on the TV as he bites into his sandwich. “What are we watching?” he asks.

“ _I’m_ watching _Friends_ reruns,” he tells Stiles. “I was enjoying it, too, before you showed up.”

“You watch _Friends_? You don’t seem like a _Friends_ type to me,” Stiles says around the food in his mouth.

“Everyone’s a _Friends_ type,” Derek replies with a roll of the eyes, but the usual hostility in his voice when talking to Stiles isn’t there. “Besides, there’s not anything else worth watching. There’s this, Nickelodeon, the News station, and animal documentaries. This was the best option.”

“I like Nickelodeon,” Stiles tells him matter-of-factly, placing the dirty dishes on the floor next to the couch.

“Of course you do,” Derek deadpans. “You better not leave those dishes there.”

“Derek Hale: The Meticulous Werewolf.”

Derek turns his head and glares. “You’re breaking rule number two again,” he states before returning his eyes back to the TV. So Stiles only sighs and stands, bending to retrieve the dishes, and makes his way to the kitchen, placing the dishes in the sink. While washing them, he finds himself watching Derek, and he notices that even though his face is just as guarded as always, it’s somewhat more relaxed than normal. Stiles thinks that it suits him well.

 

-

 

The next couple of weeks continue much the same. They fall into some sort of weird routine. Stiles will stay at the house most of the time, leaving only to seek out Anne’s company – because as much of a bitch that she can be, she provides better companionship than Derek ever does, and she’ll talk to him and joke with him, something that he needs desperately most days – and Derek will leave to god knows where every day, just as he did those first few days, and he’ll come back to take over the TV despite Stiles’ protests every single night. But at least he doesn’t slam the door anymore.

Whenever the food supply begins to dwindle, Stiles finds the next day that the fridge and cabinets will be full again, and he knows that Derek would never admit to going out and buying groceries that he shares with Stiles, but Stiles know he does it anyway, and he appreciates it nevertheless.

He calls his father every day and waits patiently for the day that he’s allowed to visit him. Stiles always thought that when he did get partnered off, his dad would ask him to visit nearly every day. But that’s much different than the actuality of it all. There’s a reason why Stiles usually tries not to get his hopes up.

It becomes easier, living with Derek. Full moons are the one days of the year that wolves are allowed to leave the house after eleven, even if they have full control over the transformation. On the first full moon, Derek sneaks back into the house at about six in the morning, and Stiles pretends to sleep when he hears the door open. Sleep wouldn’t come to him that night, and he refused to let himself believe that he was worried about Derek because that would be completely ludicrous. He barely even likes Derek; why would he worry about him? He just tells himself that the thought of all those wolves running on the loose all night concerned him.

Sleep had found him about thirty minutes after Derek had fallen asleep, and Stiles realized with a shock that Derek’s soft snores were relaxing, that they helped him sleep. Which was ridiculous and stupid, but it was hard for Stiles to deny it because he knew that it was true.

He hasn’t been back to the jail, even though he wants to. He wants to talk more to Erica and Boyd and Isaac. He finds them extremely interesting. Even if Erica and Boyd kind of scare him.

He and Derek begin to talk more, though not about anything important. Mostly, when they talk, it’s teasing and sarcastic. They banter back and forth until Derek gets annoyed with Stiles or until Derek begins to get genuinely nasty, which he does frequently, using hurtful words until Stiles backs off. Stiles never ventures into that kind of teasing, the hurtful kind. He’s too afraid that Derek will actually kill him. But at least now Derek doesn’t shove him against walls or try to break his fingers. He still threatens to do such things, but he hasn’t acted upon them since.

Stiles wouldn’t go so far as to call them friends, but they’re at least tolerant of each other.

It’s roughly thirty days later when Stiles wanders into the main office building to talk to Anne to find that she isn’t there. This is the first time that she hasn’t been there when Stiles sought her out. Stiles frowns to himself. It’s never really hit him that Anne actually does things. She’s usually always sitting in her office, making phone calls (which, once he wasn’t having a near-panic attack, she yelled at him for breaking her first phone) or talking to someone else. When this happens, Stiles waits patiently outside her office until she’s finished. But she’s always in there.

Stiles turns away from the door and wanders around the office aimlessly, peeking into open doors to see if Anne is in any of them. He’s so extremely bored today that it’s almost unbearable. Derek’s gone, so Stiles can’t annoy him, and he has yet to make any other friends or try to find anyone he knew before. Logically, he knows that Lydia’s already here (and that she had been partnered with Jackson), but he wouldn’t know what to say to her if he saw her. And he knows Allison’s going to be joining them soon, but he’s pretty sure she still hates him. He also knows that Danny got here just a few days ago and that he was the second boy to partnered with another boy (some wolf named Ethan), but he and Danny were never really friends, even though they didn’t dislike each other, either.

He finds himself walking down the hallway opposite the one that Anne’s office is in. There’s a matching set of double doors down this hallway, like the one down the other that leads to the jail. Stiles contemplates walking into it and going to see Erica, Boyd, and Isaac again, but then he remembers that he doesn’t have any way to unlock the doors without a badge. He sighs, but then he has an idea.

He hurries back down the hallway, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, and steps in front of Anne’s office again. He reaches out and tries the knob, looking both ways to make sure he’s not being watched, and is so surprised when the door gives that he almost lets out a yelp. He quickly slides into the office and shuts the door behind him, moving to Anne’s large mahogany desk. He rummages through the drawers until he finds what he’s looking for.

He lifts up her badge, smiling in disbelief. It seems like his luck is finally starting to turn around. He pockets it quickly and hurries to exit the room before Anne returns.

He shuts the door as softly as he can behind him, still smiling at the amount of fortune he’s found himself in today, when a crisp voice shouts out from behind him.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

The smile slips off his face immediately as he finds himself standing directly in front of Mariah Perry, her hands on her hips and a scowl stamping her face.

Stiles opens his mouth to say something but then closes it again, not sure how to explain this away. Finally, he says, “I was just – I was looking for Anne. She told me to meet her here today, but she didn’t specify a time, so I–”

“So you went into her office? An Official’s office? Without permission?”

“Well, I was going to wait for her,” Stiles lies swiftly. “But then I decided that if someone saw me in there by myself, I’d probably get in a lot of trouble. I was kind of hoping to avoid a situation like this, Ms. Perry.” He puts as much sincerity as he can muster into his voice, and he’s only crossing his fingers that his good luck won’t run out now.

“Turn out your pockets,” Mariah says, taking a menacing step closer to Mariah.

“I – what?” Stiles asks dumbly.

“Don’t make me repeat myself, Mr. Stilinski.”

Stiles swallows so loudly that he’s positive Mariah must’ve heard it. He’s racking his brain, trying to think of a way to get himself out of this one, but Mariah is looming ever nearer, and her glower is burning holes into his head, and he doesn’t know what to do but turn out his pockets, so that’s what he does. And when Anne’s badge falls to the floor, Mariah bends down and picks it up, an evil-looking smile contorting her face. Stiles thinks briefly that she’s actually a very nice-looking woman, but there’s a certain evilness about her that automatically lessens that attractiveness.

“It looks like we’ve got a thief on our hands,” Mariah says in an almost satisfied tone, and it makes Stiles want to cringe.

“I can explain–”

“Oh, I’m sure you can, Mr. Stilinski. Unfortunately for yourself, I’m not interested in any excuses.” She grabs him by the arm, squeezing tightly and leading him away from the office. “I’ll be speaking to Cheyenne about this.”

“Where are you taking me?” He bites his tongue before he asks her if she’s going to kill him.

“Well, seeing as you broke a very important law,” she tells him, turning back down the hallway that Stiles found himself in earlier before he returned to Anne’s office to steal her badge, “you’re going to the jail.”

“I’m being _arrested_?” he asks incredulously, eyes bugging out of his head.

“Oh, no, not arrested. Just… momentarily detained. I will alert Mr. Hale about your current situation, and you will remain in jail until he decides to come and get you.”

“I’m going to jail, but I’m not being arrested?” he asks confusedly, but she doesn’t answer him. And then he realizes that he’s going to be in jail until Derek wants to get him. And then he realizes that he’s probably going to be in jail for the rest of his life, arrested or not, because there is no way in hell that Derek’s going to stop what he’s doing in order to get Stiles out of a situation that he got himself into.

Mariah opens the doors that Stiles had been looking at earlier, and Stiles realizes that it’s not the same jail. It’s a different one, this one presumably for the humans, though it looks about the same. Mostly, it’s quieter, even though there’s still a distinct amount of noise.

Mariah squeezes his arm tighter, and he wants to protest, but he keeps quiet because he’s already in enough trouble as is. He’ll probably have bruises there tomorrow.

She stops to talk to someone in a uniform behind a desk, and then she’s letting go of Stiles’s arm and leaving without a backward glance to Stiles. Stiles breathes in relief and lifts a hand to massage his arm, but then a guard is pushing him forward. He nearly stumbles over his own feet, but he catches himself at the last minute and begins to walk. He rolls his eyes at the dramatics of it all; if they asked him to walk, he would do it. He doesn’t see why they have to push him around like some kind of animal.

They turn down a small corridor, and then a jail cell is being opened, and the guard pushes him into it roughly. Stiles groans loudly when he falls to the cement floor, scraping his hands against it roughly. He winces when he sees the blood on his palms. It’s not a lot, but it’s enough to make him angry.

“Can you at least tell me why I’m in here if I’m not being arrested?” Stiles calls to the guard, who turns to him with a nasty-looking face that makes Stiles wants to cringe away.

“You’re being held here until Ms. Perry talks to Cheyenne. Cheyenne will decide if she wants you to stay here or not. If she doesn’t, then your partner will come to pick you up.” And then the guard walks away.

Stiles rolls his eyes and groans loudly. What’s he supposed to do in here for god only knows how long?

“You’re Stiles,” a woman’s voice calls from the cell across from his. He opens his eyes to look at her, and she’s staring at him with a slightly amused grin.

“Uh… yeah,” he says, moving closer to the bars of the cell in order for her to hear him better. “I don’t know who you are, though.”

Her smile grows wider. “You could say that I used to be involved with Derek.”

Stiles wants to groan again. How come everyone he talks to these days seem to have some kind of prior relationship with Derek? Stiles doesn’t care about Derek, and he doesn’t care about the people who know him.

“Please, save me the gory details,” he tells her with an eye roll.

She laughs at that, but she doesn’t say anything else to him, for which he is grateful. Stiles decides that he might as well catch up on his sleep while he’s in here, assuming that the floor can’t be any worse than the couch that he sleeps on every night. So he curls onto his side and closes his eyes and waits for sleep to find him.

 

-

 

He wakes up when the door of his cell is banging open loudly and Derek’s voice is piercing through his sleep.

“Get up.”

Stiles opens his eyes and looks up to see Derek standing just outside the cell door, looking very un-amused and impatient. Stiles yawns and sits up, stretching his arms out as he does so. “How long have I been asleep?”

“I don’t know,” Derek says, exasperation evident in his voice. “You’ve been here for about four hours. Now _get up_.”

Stiles does as he’s told, shuffling to his feet and yawning once more. He feels exhausted all of a sudden.

Derek’s about to say something else when the woman who spoke to Stiles earlier is talking again, quietly enough that Stiles can’t hear what she’s saying but loudly enough that Derek can. Derek’s whole stance changes, going from angry to tense in just seconds, and he turns to look at the woman, eyes wide and frowning.

“Let’s go,” Derek says again, pushing Stiles ahead of him and rushing out of the jail. Stiles just goes along with it, assuming that he at least owes Derek this much for actually coming to get him instead of leaving him there for days.

“Who was that?” Stiles asks Derek once they’re back in the main building.

Derek’s jaw is clenched, and he doesn’t answer the question. He doesn’t say anything until they’re outside, walking down the street in the direction of their house, when he slaps the back of Stiles’s head with enough force to cause Stiles’s head to lurch forward as he makes a noise of pain.

“What the hell?” he shouts at Derek, but Derek only glares at him.

“Is it possible for you to not be so fucking stupid for a single day, Stiles? Honestly! Stealing a badge? How stupid can you get?”

“I am aware of my own stupidity, thank you very much. There’s no need to state it multiple times in a hostile manner. And there’s also no need to hit me. You know, it’s been, like, a month since you were violent toward me. I thought we were past there.”

“Shut up, Stiles.”

And just like that, all the progress they’d made is gone, replaced instead with the initial hostility that was there when they were first paired together.

They walk in an uncomfortable silence for a few moments. Then Stiles finds himself blurting out, “You came for me.” And he just wants to smack himself in the face because, once again, he’s managed to say something embarrassing and nonsensical in front of Derek.

Derek shoots him a surprised glance. “What?”

“Uh, nothing, it’s just… I didn’t think you’d come. Not for a few days, at least,” he explains, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment.

“Of course I came for you. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Maybe because we don’t like each other? I don’t know.”

But Derek only shrugs.

Once they get inside the house, Stiles decides that he should probably change. He probably smells like… jail. So he quickly picks up one of his shirts and pulls off his current one, preparing to slide on the new one when Derek suddenly asks, “What’s that?”

Stiles looks at Derek and frowns, following Derek’s gaze to his arm, where there’s a ring of bruises from where Mariah had dug her fingernails there painfully. “Oh, it’s nothing,” Stiles tells him, pulling on his shirt. “Mariah was just being aggressive. Like, almost your level of aggressive. It was bad.”

The joke falls on deaf ears, though, because Derek looks suddenly… angry? “That’s not funny,” Derek says. He takes a step towards Stiles but then apparently thinks better of it and turns away to sit on his bed.

“Why do you care?” Stiles asks. “It’s just a bruise. It’s not like you haven’t left plenty, thank you very much.”

“I don’t,” Derek snaps. “I was just wondering. But excuse me for starting conversation.”

Stiles’s frown deepens, and he studies Derek for a few seconds as he turns on the TV, laying back on the bed. He wonders why he got so defensive so suddenly. But dissecting Derek seems like far too much a challenge, and he figures he’d probably be permanently scarred if he went into Derek Hale’s mind, so he lets it go.

Stiles flicks off the lights and lays on the couch, covering himself with a blanket. “Are you ever going to tell me who that girl was?” Stiles inquires.

“Probably not,” Derek spits out.

And Stiles just rolls his eyes and turns onto his side, facing away from Derek. Apparently, Derek’s not in the mood to talk, so Stiles doesn’t push the subject.

So Stiles falls asleep with the words “ _Of course I came for you_ ” lingering traitorously in his mind.


	5. 319 Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for this chapter being so short (if 5k words can be considered short). I have a busy week ahead of me, and I wanted to make sure to squeeze in one more chapter. The next one probably won't be coming until a day or two after the Saturday or Sunday. It's almost two in the morning, and I just finished it, so there may be mistakes as I didn't edit it as extensively as I usually do, and I also apologize for that.
> 
> Also, I hope you guys are enjoying season three of Teen Wolf as much as I am! (Even though, admittedly, I've been crying throughout pretty much every single episode. Especially tonight's episode, am I right?)

Stiles spends the next few days turning over the words “Stockholm Syndrome” in his mind.

It’s not like he really knows everything about it, just the basics. One becomes sympathetic with one’s captor and all that. He’s been applying the term to several different people over the past few days.

Logically, he knows that Derek isn’t his captor. He knows that Derek doesn’t want to be in this situation any more than Stiles does. But the fact that they’re forced in a room together for X amount of hours a day combined with the fact that Derek is a complete asshole to him… well, the same terms apply, right?

Stiles came into this whole thing absolutely despising Derek. And it’s not like a whole lot has changed, but fifty days later, Stiles can find himself knowing not to push Derek too far and not wanting Derek to be angry, whereas he didn’t care as much in the beginning. He still doesn’t _like_ Derek, not really, but he finds himself more and more… concerned about him, nevertheless. There are some days when Derek comes back from wherever he goes every day with an expression of anger or sadness or utter exhaustion that goes far past simply being tired on his face, and on those days, Stiles wants to ask Derek what’s wrong, but he knows that that’d be crossing the line they drew without ever really discussing it. They just fell into this pattern of not talking about each other’s problems or feelings ever that if one of them brought it up, it would bring out feelings of uneasiness or a certain level of intimacy that neither of them want. They don’t want to become friends, not really. At least, they want to get a divorce more than they want friendship, and starting a friendship would ruin everything because that’s one rule that Stiles does remember. After getting a divorce, you can never so much as look at your partner again.

So starting a friendship is out of the equation. They instead carry on as they do, with banter and harsh words and the occasional argument in which Derek will threaten to hurt him in some violent manner. Nine times out of ten, these threats never ring true.

Then he thinks of Anne. Technically, she’s not really a “captor,” either. And Stiles has grown to like her and to even seek out her company, so he’s not really sure if the terms apply to her, either. But he knows that she’s definitely intimidating, and he tends to sympathize with her more than she sympathizes with him. That’s one definition of Stockholm syndrome, isn’t it? Growing to care for someone who intimidates or harasses you? He isn’t really sure, but he thinks he read about that somewhere, that they don’t have to be a technical “captor” for Stockholm syndrome to apply. She’s never said it out loud (except for the one time that she admitted that she has a “soft spot” for him), but he can see in the way that she treats him somehow differently, gentler, than she treats others that those words hold at least a little bit of truth behind them. She’ll also send him sad little glances when he’s on the phone with his dad and asking when he can visit, and she’ll cringe at the appropriate places when he tells her about how much of a dick that Derek is to him. She balances these niceties with teasing words, but Stiles knows they’re there. They’ve become tentative friends, despite Derek warning him every which way that Anne isn’t who he thinks she is. Stiles brushes this off as Derek disliking her for whatever reason Derek ever has to dislike anyone. Anne is more of a companion to Stiles than Derek is, so Stiles takes Anne’s side over Derek’s.

Stiles doesn’t like to think of himself as a victim. If he really truly had to, he’d at least try to fight back against Derek or Anne, despite the very obvious fact that he would lose, and they would both probably eat him for dinner. But it’s not like he wouldn’t try. He’s a pretty independent person. He can carry his own, and he can talk someone to death if he had to. So maybe Peter was right, maybe he’s not a warrior. But he’s smart, and he could probably figure something out.

Meanwhile, Anne had been furious at him when she next saw him. She lectured him for about forty-five minutes on why stealing in general isn’t okay (“but _especially_ from an official. Really, Stiles, what did you expect to happen?”) and how she wasn’t really mad at what he did, she was only mad that he wasn’t careful about it and got caught. She also told him that if he had wanted to visit the jail again, all he had to do was ask. He then proceeded to ask, and Anne had shook her head and told him that they couldn’t now, not until a pair of guards who were less attentive than the ones now were assigned to that jail. She then explained how that’s where she was when Stiles went to her office and found that she wasn’t there – apparently, all Officials have “Jail Duty,” like, once a month or something, and she was in the werewolf part of the jail.

He’s been keeping himself busy by reading. Which, okay, totally dorky, but he still has yet to make friends. Everything just feels too… off-kilter to start friendships. So when he’s not watching TV or eating or talking to Anne, he’s reading.

Most books that he had access to before the Human-Werewolf Alliance took over the government are now banned, so he finds himself reading more nonfiction books than fiction. He’s been reading history books or books about the science of time-travel or books about exactly where you’re supposed to use semi-colons and commas in the modern English language. There are loads of nonfiction books in the room, and he doesn’t know if Derek brought them all or if they were here before, if they came with the house. But they’re all very fascinating, almost more fascinating than fiction books. Because these things are _real_ , they actually happened, or they discuss actual possibilities of things that should be impossible, or they teach him things about his own language that he never knew before. Who needs College when he can read these books in the privacy of his own house?

Finally, the day comes when Stiles’s dad says he can visit. And Stiles nearly cries, he’s so relieved. He was beginning to think that his father would never allow him to visit.

Stiles swiftly goes back to the house once he’s off the phone with his dad to change his clothes before Anne gives him the okay to leave, and he’s surprised to find that Derek’s still there. Usually, he’s gone by now, and he doesn’t return until later in the evening.

“No secret meetings with the Brooding Werewolf Association today?” he calls out as he strips off his shirt and replaces it with a clean one, throwing the dirty one onto the couch as a way of reminding himself to wash it before he sleeps tonight. He proceeds to pull on a plaid as Derek turns to look at him, his eyebrows knitting together.

“What?”

“Oh, sorry, was I not supposed to notice that you’re gone every single day at exactly the same times? I just assumed that’s where you were going. There have to be more wolves like you who are seeking out other brooding wolves for companionship, I figured.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “You’re ridiculous.”

Stiles shoots him a smile. “You like it.”

Derek pulls a face as if the very thought of enjoying Stiles’s banter was abhorrent. “You wish.”

“So you’re not going to tell me what you get up to every day?” Stiles can’t help but asking because he really is curious as to what Derek does in those few hours.

Derek shakes his head, returning his attention to the TV and the plate of what looks like steak and mashed potatoes in his lap. Stiles wants to point out that that’s more of a dinner meal than a lunch meal, but he knows that it’ll fall on deaf ears. “It’s still none of your business.” He then eyes Stiles for a moment. “Where are you going?”

Stiles contemplates not answering, but he figures Derek will find out one way or another, anyway. “I’m going to visit my dad.”

Derek frowns at that, sitting up a little straighter. “Your dad?”

“Yeah…?” Stiles trails off, honestly confused as to why Derek looks so baffled at the prospect of Stiles visiting his father.

Derek makes a humming noise in the back of his throat and lets the subject drop, but the frown doesn’t leave his face. Stiles wants to push the subject, but he wants to be able to actually see his dad, so he only shrugs it off and leaves.

About an hour later, Stiles is standing at the front door of his old house, his _real_ home, and he finds himself paralleling his actions the first time he ever stood outside of his new house, unsure if he should knock or not. Rationally, he should be able to just walk in – this is still his house, after all. He’s going to come right back here after this whole Derek conundrum has passed. But he hasn’t been here in over _fifty days_ , so does that make him a guest?

He raises his hand to knock when the door is suddenly thrown wide open, and his dad in enveloping him in a hug. And Stiles doesn’t know what else to do but hug his father back. He can already feel his eyes start to burn and his throat tightening, but he forces himself not to cry, not in front of his dad, not again. If he can only see his dad for two hours, then he’s not going to waste them crying.

After a moment or so, his dad lets go of Stiles and backs up, smiling sadly at him. He gestures him inside, and Stiles goes, his dad following behind.

“It’s good to see you, son,” his dad tells him once Stiles is sitting on the couch. “You look thinner.”

Stiles frowns slightly at that. “I do?” he asks, reaching up automatically to touch his face. He feels like he’s been eating more now.

“Maybe it’s just because I haven’t seen you in such a long time,” his dad says, sitting next to him on the couch. “I’m sorry about that, by the way. I just had–”

“Yeah, work stuff, I know,” Stiles says, waving a hand in dismissal. “I just wish you weren’t so secretive about it all. No one seems to be telling me anything these days.”

“It’s better that you don’t know. I know you want to argue with me, but trust me. It really is better. For now, at least.”

“Does that mean you’ll eventually tell me?”

His dad looks like he’s considering the option before he says, “Eventually, you’ll know, yes. It’s just not the right time.”

Stiles nods, though he still doesn’t really understand. He’s his _son_ ; he has to know that he can trust Stiles. But Stiles doesn’t push the subject.

“So how’s Derek been treating you?”

Stiles’ eyebrows raise at the question. “Uh… still like shit. But he’s getting better. I guess he finally realized that we’re actually going to be living together for a whole year, so he’s… trying to be more tolerant, I guess. Or as tolerant as Derek Hale could get.”

Stiles’s dad nods. Then he’s suddenly smiling a little bit mischievously. “Are you excited?”

And Stiles is definitely taken aback because this is not at all how he imagined his first conversation with his dad in over a month. “Uh… about Derek treating me like a human being? Yeah, Dad, I’m thrilled.”

“Not that,” he says, rolling his eyes in that affectionate way that he does. “Don’t you know what today is?”

Stiles racks his brain for a moment, desperately trying to pull out any events that he can think of, but nothing surfaces for this particular day. “Uh… should I?”

“It’s Allison’s birthday!” his dad says in a definite “duh” tone.

Stiles frowns once more in confusion. “Okay, Dad, I don’t think Allison likes me. Why would I be excited?”

“Didn’t you hear?” Now his dad looks genuinely confused. “I thought Derek might tell you.”

“Derek? Tell me what? Dad, you lost me in this whole conversation. I’m in the middle of nowhere and there are no road signs anywhere.”

And then his dad’s face goes from happy to a little bit sad. “She got partnered with Scott, Stiles.”

And Stiles can feel the moment his whole expression changes. His face goes from confused to… blank. Because… why would that excite him? He hasn’t seen his so-called best friend in _years_. And he kind of expected to never see him again. So the prospect of actually seeing Scott again, after all this time… it make him irrationally angry. Because why should Scott just show up out of the blue and expect Stiles to just take him back into his life, as if the spot was reserved for him? Why does Scott get a Get Out Of Jail Free card when he has no clue – _no freaking idea_ – what kind of hell Stiles has been going through for the past few years? And for all Stiles knew, Scott could’ve been dead. He could’ve died in the war.

But now he’s back, and he’s just going to… show up?

Stiles stands suddenly, feeling sick. He kind of feels like he has to throw up, but at the same time, he knows he isn’t going to. So he just stands and tries to center himself, tries to get the room to stop spinning. Because for some reason, this news is taking an even larger toll on him than when he got partnered with Derek. He didn’t know Derek before this all happened, not happened. He knew Scott. And he isn’t sure if he still will.

“Stiles? Are you okay?” His dad is suddenly there, easing him back down to a sitting position on the couch, and then he’s leaning Stiles’s head onto his shoulder, and, _wow_ , Stiles knew he missed having the comfort of his father easily accessible to him, but this just drives it home. Because he actually has a solid person to lean on and to hold him when he just wants to roll into a ball and stay like that for months on end. His dad is here to comfort him; all of the bitter feelings towards him over the last month or so are gone, just like that, and he just breathes heavily against his father’s shoulder until he calms down enough to talk.

“I – I’m sorry. Wow, that wasn’t… I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

Stiles’s dad smiles at him sadly. “If I knew that would happen, I wouldn’t have told you.”

Stiles only shrugs, lifting his head up and shaking it a bit. “I would’ve found out eventually. It’s better to have a warning beforehand, I guess. If I just saw him walking down the street or something, I might’ve punched him in the face or… something.”

“You’re really that mad at him?”

“Can you really blame me? He just left, Dad. And he was my best friend, but he just… left. It didn’t matter to him.”

“It was probably a lot harder than you realize.”

“Dad, can you just take my side? For my sake?”

Stiles’s dad looks like maybe he wants to argue the subject a bit more, but he apparently decides against it, for which Stiles is grateful.

 

-

 

Two hours later, Stiles is standing back in front of his new house, not quite ready to go inside yet. He left his house, forcing himself to hold back tears, with a tight hug and a promise from his dad that he’ll let him come back soon, that he won’t have to wait as long for the next visit.

He doesn’t want to face Derek already. He feels emotionally exhausted, and Derek’s only good at making him feel worse. So he just stands outside the door, knowing full well that Derek can tell that he’s outside but choosing not to care.

After a moment or two, Stiles realizes with a start that there are voices coming from inside the house. At first, Stiles thinks that Derek must be talking to himself because he remembers that it’s not customary to have visitors inside a house that isn’t their own in this community. But then he hears two distinct voices, and he realizes that Derek’s carrying out a conversation with someone inside.

Stiles presses his ear to the door to try and eavesdrop on the conversation, but seconds after his ear is planted firmly against the wood, the door is being thrown open, and Stiles finds himself getting hit in the face with the door. Stiles shouts a bit in pain and stumbles backwards, clutching the right side of his face. He rubs at his sore jaw for a moment before he actually looks up to see two separate sets of eyes on him. There’s Derek, who’s scowl is in full-force and focused solely on Stiles, and then there’s someone he’s never seen before, staring at Stiles with what looks like curiosity and amusement.

“What are you doing?” Derek spits out.

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Yes, Derek, I’m feeling fine, thanks for asking. It’s not like a door was just thrown in my face.”

Stiles can see the slight jump in Derek’s jaw, and he knows immediately that he must be using an extraordinary amount of willpower to not hit Stiles right then and there. “That’s your own fault, dumbass.”

“Who’s this?” Stiles asks quickly, gesturing to the other man, resolute to not bait on Derek.

“None of your business,” Derek tells him through gritted teeth at the same time that the man steps forward and sticks out a hand for Stiles to take.

“My name is Alan Deaton. I’m the doctor.”

Stiles takes Deaton’s hand hesitantly, narrowing his eyes and shooting curious glances at Derek, noticing the way his jaw seems to repeatedly clench and unclench. “I wasn’t aware that Derek was in need of a doctor,” he comments, ignoring Derek’s intensifying glares.

“Yes, well,” Deaton says, glancing backwards at Derek for a second before turning back to Stiles and smiling. “Doctor-patient confidentiality; you understand.”

Stiles nods. “Of course,” he tells him and steps to the side in order for Deaton to walk past him.

“I’ll be seeing you,” Deaton calls out to Derek before he leaves, walking down the pathway in steady steps.

Stiles turns to Derek, raising his eyebrows. “You need a doctor?”

Derek doesn’t answer, only turns and walks back into the house. Stiles follows quickly, shutting the door shut behind him with perhaps more force than absolutely necessary.

“So what? Are you just not going to tell me why he was here? Don’t you think I deserve to know _something_?”

And suddenly, Derek is _right there_ , right up in his face. He’s standing so close that Stiles can feel the heat radiating off of his body, and when he looks at his face, Stiles can see that there’s a mixture of rage and something else that Stiles can’t quite place in his eyes, and his face is twisted into an ugly scowl.

“Why don’t you just stay out of my way, Stiles? Unlike you, I’ve got important stuff to do.”

“Okay, look, this intimidation bullshit got really old really fast. I know that you have the ability to hurt me, okay? And I also know that you’re not going to. You don’t even scare me anymore! So instead of trying to assert yourself like the power control freak that you are, why don’t you just, uh, I don’t know, _tell me what the hell is going on_?”

But Derek doesn’t tell him anything. Instead, Derek whips his arm back so fast, palm open, and Stiles automatically flinches away, preparing for the blow that Derek is about to land on Stiles’s face.

His eyes are squeezed shut, and he’s holding his breath, but the burn doesn’t come. He opens one eye to see that Derek’s hand is back at his side, but he’s still just as close to Stiles was a minute ago. Stiles opens both his eyes now, blinking in surprise and staring at Derek incredulously.

“Did you just – what did you do?” he stammers out because he really has no clue what just happened. One second, he’s prepared to hit Stiles, and the next, he’s back to being his normal (or, as normal as Derek Hale can get when he’s mad at Stiles for some unconceivable reason) self.

“I was proving a point,” he says. “I _can_ hurt you, and I _will_ hurt you, and you’re still scared. So don’t try to act like you’re some fearless boy now just because you know that I _most likely_ won’t hurt you.”

And then Derek is moving away from him, going into the kitchen and opening the fridge.

“Are you – you’re kidding me, right?” he shouts at Derek because he is _so angry_. He’s so done with being treated like someone Derek can just kick around for shits and giggles. “I’m not scared _of you_ , Derek; I’m scared of you _hurting me_! There’s a difference! Instead of pushing me around all the time, can’t you – I don’t know – _try_ to be at least a little bit nice to me? Because this is getting ridiculous! Every time I think that we’re making some kind of progress in this fucked up relationship, you have to do something to fuck it up and make me realize that there’s _never_ going to be any progress made and that I’m going to apparently be miserable for the next three hundred something days!”

“Well, what do you want me to say to you, Stiles?” Derek shouts back at him.

“I don’t know, the truth? Tell me where you go every day? Tell me why I shouldn’t trust Anne? Tell me who that girl was in the jail or tell me who your pack is or tell me who that guy who just left is and why you need a doctor in the first place? Jesus, Derek, it’s not that hard to tell me the truth!”

“I find it very difficult to tell the truth to someone who you don’t like or trust.”

“You don’t _trust_ me? That’s what this is about? Are you kidding? I’m in the same boat as you, Derek! I don’t want to be in this situation, either! Who would I even tell anything to? I have no one!”

“You seem pretty close to Anne,” he says, and Stiles realizes now that Derek’s actually _cooking_. Stiles is furious and wants nothing more than to stick wolfs bane down Derek’s throat, and he’s _cooking_.

Stiles makes an angry noise in the back of his throat and bites his tongue from yelling something at Derek that he’ll regret. Instead, he clenches his teeth together and lays down on the couch and draws the blanket up over his head and closes his eyes and wills his angry mind to sleep because that’s the only viable option he really has at this point.

But sleep doesn’t come, and he’s awake when the lights turn off, and he’s awake when Derek gets into bed, and he’s awake when he hears the TV flicker on with the volume so low that he can’t really tell what it’s saying, but the background noise is somehow comforting anyway.

And he’s awake when Derek quietly says, “I don’t have a pack.”

Stiles frowns slightly to himself, and he thinks for a moment that he imagined it, but then he’s peeling the covers off of his head and turns to see that Derek’s staring up at the ceiling, and he continues to talk once he notices that he got a reaction out of an apparently awake Stiles.

“My pack is gone,” he says in a voice so soft that Stiles is actually shocked. He never thought Derek’s voice could go soft.

“What do you mean?” he ventures, not sure if Derek’s even going to answer him. He wasn’t sure if his voice would anger Derek enough to cause him to stop talking, but it was clear that Derek wasn’t going to continue unless prompted.

And for a second, Derek doesn’t answer, only closes his eyes and folds his hands on top of his stomach. And Stiles sighs and thinks that he’s done talking, but then he’s continuing, “They’re all in jail.”

“ _Jail_?” Stiles asks incredulously. “What did they do?”

Derek shrugs – or as much as one can shrug when lying down in bed – and Stiles finds himself noticing that the soft glow from the television makes Derek’s face appear nicer. Stiles hates this constant shift between them, the way they can go from screaming at each other to talking as if they’ve never had a fight before. It unsettles him because it makes him realize that he can never really tell what Derek’s going to do, and if there’s one thing that Stiles hates, it’s unpredictability.

Derek’s always guarded around Stiles, always angry to a certain degree, and always scowling like he would rather be anywhere else in the world but here, but sometimes he’ll show nice gestures that remind Stiles that he really is a human to a degree and not some kind of angry machine who was built solely to make Stiles’s life a living hell. And at times like these, when Derek seems almost _open_ , Stiles almost prefers the yelling and the screaming and the harsh words because at least then, Stiles doesn’t have to worry about the potential of friendship between them. But now, in the dark room with the TV playing softly in the background, the door is thrown open wide, and Stiles can see all the different paths that their relationship can take, and that’s something that he seriously, honestly doesn’t want.

“Erica’s in there because she protested,” Derek starts, but he’s quickly interrupted by Stiles.

“Wait – _Erica_? Erica’s in your pack?”

Derek sits up a little straighter, eyes narrowing suspiciously in Stiles’s direction. “You know her?”

“Well, I – I knew her in school a little bit. But not really. We never talked. But Anne took me to the jail once, and I met her. But if Anne knew that they were in your pack, why would she want me to meet them?”

“Anne took you into the werewolf jail?” Derek asks incredulously.

“Oh – yeah, but I wasn’t really supposed to tell anyone, so… if you could just keep that on the down-low, it’d be great.”

“She is the biggest dumbass – Did you meet Boyd and Isaac, too?”

“They’re your pack, too?” Stiles asks. “Yeah, those are the only ones she let me meet.”

Derek frowns. “If you only met the three in my pack… No, that can’t be a coincidence. That was deliberate. She doesn’t like me, and she just happened to introduce you to the wolves in my pack?” He runs a hand over his face. “What’s she playing at?”

Stiles knows that Derek isn’t looking for an answer from Stiles, especially since they both know that Stiles wouldn’t have an answer, so he doesn’t even give a sarcastic reply.

“You can’t tell her anything, Stiles,” he’s saying suddenly. “I know I’ve said it before, but I mean it. She’s up to no good. She’s trying to get to me somehow without speaking to me directly. You can’t fall for it.” He looks at Stiles sharply. “What did she say to you? Why did she want to take you there?”

“Uh… I don’t – I don’t remember,” Stiles stutters out, racking his brain for the answer to that because he _knows_ the answer to that one, but he can’t for the life of him remember. What can he say? He doesn’t do well under pressure.

“ _Stiles_ ,” Derek practically growls, and Stiles rolls his eyes at Derek’s obvious attempt to intimidate him because, um, did they not just have this conversation a few hours ago?

“Oh! She said something about wanting me to know that – that there are options for me–”

“ _Options for you_? What the hell does that mean?”

“I’m getting there! Jeez, Derek. Try a little patience, huh?” At Derek’s annoyed glare, Stiles continues. “She said that there are options for me, for in case you ‘go too far.’ She said that there are wolves in there who had less issues than you did, but they still ended up in there for some reason or another.”

And for a second, Derek looks genuinely scared, as if he thinks that Stiles will actually get Derek arrested for something. “Stiles, you can’t do that,” Derek says almost immediately, and there’s a hint of desperation in his voice that Stiles is surprised to find there. “I don’t care how much of a dick I can be to you, you have to trust me on this one. You can’t get me into trouble with Anne or any other Official, for that matter.”

Stiles just rolls his eyes and rolls onto his back, shutting his eyes, suddenly exhausted. He’s ready to sleep, not interested in this conversation with Derek anymore, but his sleep-riddled mind thinks that, for some reason, it’s a good idea to add one more thing before this conversation is over.

“I wouldn’t do that,” he calls out to Derek.

“What?” Derek shoots back, and Stiles wonders for a second if Derek couldn’t hear him because of how quietly he said it, but then he remembers that Derek is a freaking werewolf, and of course he heard, so it really isn’t worth repeating, but he finds himself repeating it anyway.

“I know we hate each other, but I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t turn you in.” As an afterthought, he adds, “Unless I actually had a good reason to. You being your usual asshole to me isn’t a reason to. Although sometimes I think it should be.”

The last noise Stiles hears before he falls to sleep is a surprised chuckle rolling off of Derek’s lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback would be very much encouraged :)


	6. 314 Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This came a lot earlier than I anticipated! It turns out that my busy week wasn't quite as busy as I had expected, and I had plenty of time to sneak away and write :) This chapter was a little difficult for me to write, so I hope it turned out okay. Also, I hope all of you who celebrate Fourth of July had a wonderful holiday :)

Stiles doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the idea of showering when he knows that Derek is just outside the bathroom door.

It’s not like Derek can see him showering or anything; Stiles knows that. He’s not an idiot. But he still feels strangely self-conscious getting naked in the same small home as Derek, even if he is behind a closed door.

Regardless, the bathroom has become his favorite place in the house, especially now that Derek seems to be leaving the house less and less. Apparently, his secretive little meetings aren’t happening as much anymore, so now he’s in the house most of the time.

Stiles likes the bathroom because it’s the only room in the house where he can close himself off and actually be by himself, without Derek eyeing him every now and again or shooting him glares or spitting out bitter words. The colors in the room are calming, and he finds himself almost falling asleep in there when he piles towels into the tub and makes makeshift pillows out of towels and washcloths, huddling into a corner of the tub and holding a book close, reading in the quiet of the small room. But when he feels his eyes drooping, he decides to leave the bathroom in favor of the couch and falls asleep there instead.

He’s aware that it sounds a lot like he’s hiding from Derek, but he’s not. Just because he wants to get away from him doesn’t mean he’s hiding. He meant it when he said he wasn’t scared of Derek. In the beginning, sure, of course he was, but now, he finds Derek’s intimidation tactics mostly just amusing.

Stiles hasn’t left the house since he got back from visiting his dad. He knows that if he leaves, he’s going to end up running into Scott, and he isn’t prepared for that confrontation yet. Then again, he doesn’t know if he ever will be.

So, yeah, maybe he isn’t hiding from Derek, but he can at least admit that he’s hiding from Scott.

He hasn’t talked to his dad since, either. Stiles knows that his dad still has work to do, and after bothering him for so long about visiting, he figures he owes his dad at least this much, to just give him some time to himself and his work.

And then there’s Anne. He’s been actively avoiding her, too. After the conversation Stiles had with Derek, he can’t help but think that there’s something suspicious about her and that maybe Derek has been right this whole time, that Anne has a darker, devious side, and she’s trying to use Stiles for whatever nefarious purposes she may have before killing him.

Mostly, though, he really doesn’t know what to think about anything. Because there are limitless possibilities. Anne could end up killing him, sure, but then, at the same rate… couldn’t Derek end up killing him, too? Derek could be the evil one in this situation. Anne could be the one who’s right, and she could be the one trying to protect him. Maybe Derek’s the one who’s actually using Stiles. But if Derek was trying to use Stiles, wouldn’t he be nicer to him?

After realizing that his thoughts are beginning to turn borderline paranoid, he tells himself that it’d be a good idea to stop thinking about it altogether. He decides that overthinking everything will only make him stress anymore.

On this particular day, Derek’s gone. Stiles isn’t really sure where he’s at, but he’s pretty sure it has something to do with the secret place he’s been going to since this whole thing started. So Stiles is alone in the house, lounging on the couch and channel-surfing, when there’s a knock at the door.

At first, he doesn’t really know what to do because no one’s ever knocked on the door before. He’s pretty sure no one’s ever been in this house before while he was there other than Derek (and that one time that he arrived to find Deaton there). Derek might’ve had other people inside while he was gone or something, but he’s not sure.

So Stiles just frowns slightly and stares at the door, as if that’ll will him to see the face behind it, when a knock comes again, louder this time. So he hops off the couch and clicks off the television, moving swiftly to the door and opening it.

And when he sees Scott standing there, all smiles and bright eyes and looking almost _exactly_ as he did when he left all those years ago (save for a much-needed haircut and larger muscles), Stiles doesn’t know what to do.

“Hi, Stiles,” Scott says almost sheepishly, that goofy smile of his never leaving his face, and Stiles knows that Scott’s expecting him to smile back and say “Hey, Scott, long time no see!” and invite him inside and watch bad sitcoms and eat stale chips, just like they used to do when they were in tenth grade. But Stiles… _can’t_.

And he’s suddenly furious, and he feels the angry tears burning the backs of his eyes, and he is _so_ not going to let Scott see him cry, so he does the second thing that his irrational brain supplies.

He launches his arm back with all the force he can muster and punches Scott in the face.

And, okay, yeah, if he had any doubts about it before, it’s _definitely_ a bad idea to punch a werewolf. They don’t only look like they’re chiseled from stone, but they feel like it, too, and he’s pretty sure he got more of the impact than Scott did, but he just doesn’t care.

Stiles watches as Scott frowns slightly, the smile dropping right off of his face, and he invites himself into Stiles’s home, and he shuts the door behind him, and he looks like he’s maybe about to hug Stiles or something, but once Stiles has started, he can’t stop. He punches Scott again and again and again, and even though he’s pretty sure it doesn’t hurt Scott at all, and he’s sure he’s going to break one of his fingers or at least bruise his knuckles by doing this, the rational part of his brain has left, and his mind is just telling him to not stop, that if he does this hard enough for a long enough time, it’ll eventually leave some kind of lasting effect. It _has_ to. Because he needs Scott to know how much his life has sucked, and he needs Scott to know that he didn’t have anyone, and he needs Scott to know how much it fucking _hurt_ , just being left like that by his best friend.

Stiles isn’t a usually violent person, but sometimes, he finds that certain circumstances allow exceptions.

And at some point, Stiles had wrestled Scott to the floor and straddled him in order to get a better aim at his face. And he can feel Scott trying to get Stiles to stop, and he can see the exact moment when he transitions from human to wolf, and he knows logically that Scott isn’t going to hurt him, that he has control over it by now (after all, he had _all those years_ of practice) and that he’d get into a limitless amount of trouble if he did hurt him somehow, so Stiles doesn’t stop hitting him. And he knows that he’s openly crying now, but as long as he keeps hitting Scott, that doesn’t matter. Because he’s _pissed off_ , and he’s not a warrior, but that doesn’t mean he can’t fight like one.

And he can hear the door opening somewhere in the back of his mind, but he ignores it because all he can focus on is hitting Scott, even though Scott definitely now has the upper arm, and he can feel Scott preparing to throw Stiles off of him, but then Scott’s suddenly… gone, and Stiles lands one solid punch to the floor, and he finds himself grateful that it’s carpet as he looks up to see that Derek’s there, and he’s shoving Scott against a wall and growling in his face, and Stiles realizes with a start that this is the first time he’s seen Derek as a wolf.

They have this really weird and intense staring match (or that’s what it looks like to Stiles), and then Scott’s losing the facial hair and yellow eyes, and after a rather forceful-looking shove from Derek, Derek lets go of Scott and transitions back into a complete human himself. Stiles just stares at them as Scott rubs the back of his neck awkwardly and Derek pointedly ignores Stiles’s gaze, staring at the floor with his signature scowl, as if the carpet has somehow personally offended him.

And then Stiles realizes that, holy _hell_ , Derek just came in here and basically _attacked_ Scott just because he wolfed out on Stiles. But that’s the least of his problems, so he pushes that into the back of his mind and shoves it into a file that he’s tilted “Things to Analyze Later.”

Stiles shuffles to his feet, eyes flickering back and forth between Scott and Derek before they finally settle on Scott’s face, and Stiles knows that Scott is already healing, but Stiles notices with a sense of satisfaction the dark bruises along his jawline and the way his lip is slightly busted.

But then Scott’s eyes are looking straight into his, his large brown eyes warm, and he actually _smiles_ at Stiles, as if Stiles didn’t just spend the past few minutes trying to beat the crap out of, and the smile is completely devoid of anger or blame or anything negative at all, just… relieved, almost.

And then Stiles completely loses it again but in an entirely different way. This time, when he lunges forward, it’s not to hurt Scott but to gather him in his arms. And he hugs Scott as tight as he can, if only to prove to himself that, yes, Scott is _here_. His best friend is here and alive and _real_ , and he’s crying against Scott’s shoulder, and he knows that Derek is standing _right there_ and that he should probably stop crying in front of him because he knows that Derek will only make fun of him for it later, but he can’t stop, just like he couldn’t stop hitting Scott. And Scott hugs him back with no hesitation at all.

“I’m sorry,” Scott says softly even though Stiles was the one who was hitting him, and Stiles thinks it’s the softest he’s ever heard Scott speak to him, including the day he learned of his mother’s death. Probably because at least then, he still had Scott. Since this whole marriage thing happened, he’s had pretty much no one.

Stiles hears the door open and close again in the distance, and he knows that it’s Derek leaving, for which Stiles is grateful.

Scott backs off then, smiling once more at Stiles, though this time, the smile comes off as sad. “I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I know that I’ve been a giant ass–”

“No, you haven’t,” Stiles interrupts, wiping pathetically at his eyes. “You haven’t been anything. You know, considering you’ve been MIA.”

Scott actually flinches a little at that, and Stiles feels bad at first, but then he sets his face determinedly, not allowing himself to feel bad about _any_ pain that he causes Scott. He knows that he’s being at least a little bit unfair, but he can’t find it in himself to care.

“Look, Stiles. Things got really bad. Like, _really_ bad. I couldn’t just come back.”

“You couldn’t even come and tell me why? You couldn’t find me for about three minutes to explain to me what the hell is going on? Jesus, I thought you might’ve _died_ , Scott!”

“I can explain–”

“And it doesn’t help that I basically have _no friends_. Do you know who I’ve had to talk to since you up and left? My dad. And that’s it. Because, if you haven’t noticed, Derek’s a giant dick who likes nothing more than to screw with my head, and everyone else here is _crazy_! So, yeah, thanks for that.”

“Stiles–”

“And also, I don’t really appreciate–”

“Stiles!”

Stiles stops talking at the last interjection from Scott, opting instead to chew on the inside of his cheek to keep himself from talking. Because, okay, if Scott has something to say, if he genuinely thinks that anything he could say could make abandoning his best friend okay, then Stiles is all for listening and then proceeding to laugh in his face because he doesn’t think that _anything_ could make what Scott did okay in Stiles’s mind. Sure, Stiles will probably end up forgiving him (he can’t help it; Scott is still his best friend, and he’s never been able to really say no to Scott), but that doesn’t mean Stiles will just let this one go.

Scott runs his hands across his face before he sighs a large sigh and begins to speak. “I should’ve found you when the war ended. I know that.”

Stiles makes a noise in the back of his throat that kind of sounds like a choked-off laugh, even though there’s no humor there whatsoever.

“But when it did, I couldn’t come back here. Some stuff happened, and I got thrust into this position of power that I didn’t even want in the first place. I didn’t… I know I told you that I was going to find Derek, but I didn’t. He found me.”

Scott sits heavily on the edge of Derek’s bed now, and Stiles realizes now just how utterly exhausted Scott looks. There are dark circles underneath his eyes, and his eyelids keep dropping.

He follows Scott’s lead and sits on his couch as Scott continues.

“I was almost dead out there. I got into a fight with another werewolf, and she nearly killed me. She left me for dead in the middle of the woods. This was all before the war even started. But then, after weeks of searching for Derek, he just came out of nowhere and took me back to this… this, like, giant barn-looking thing that him and his pack and some other packs used for hiding. And he helped me heal, and he took me in. I met Boyd and Erica and Isaac. You know, the rest of his pack. And I met Peter, too. But when the war came, Derek got really badly injured almost instantly. The hunters saw him as the leader of our little group, so they went after him first. He almost died in that war.”

Stiles is taken aback by that. He had no clue about any of this, and it’s all very fascinating to him, hearing what went on with the wolves during the war. But he never even imagined that Derek could’ve almost died. Derek just seems so… invincible to Stiles. He isn’t really sure why, but the thought of Derek getting injured seems almost laughable.

“And Derek _was_ kind of the leader. He made all the plans, told us where to go and what to do and who to fight. So we didn’t really know what to do after he got hurt. And everyone in our group decided that the best thing to do would be to vote on a new leader, just so that we had at least some direction. We knew that we would lose without Derek, but we had to _try_. And… they voted for me. Probably because none of them wanted that responsibility – I mean, I didn’t want it, either – but I was the newest member of the group, so it became my job. So I told Erica and Isaac to stay with Derek and make sure he didn’t get any more injured than he already was, and everyone else fought with me. And then the Alliance broke in and stopped the war.”

“Derek said you were important in the werewolf community,” Stiles blurts suddenly. He knows that Scott wasn’t done speaking, but the thought came to him without warning, and Stiles’s mind to mouth filter is virtually nonexistent.

Scott nods slowly. “I didn’t want to be. As soon as the war ended, I wanted to go back to Beacon Hills and my mom and you and Allison. But Derek was still off-kilter from his injury, and all the werewolves were just coming out of hiding, and they didn’t really have anywhere to go. And they saw me as some kind of… I don’t know, some kind of hero, I guess. And there was still Derek’s pack, and I couldn’t just _leave_ them. At first, they didn’t really like me all that much, but I guess during the war, we kind of grew dependent on each other. And they didn’t really have anyone but each other.”

“Gee, I wonder how that must feel,” Stiles mutters harshly.

“Stiles, I’m sorry, okay? But they all needed me. They looked up to me, which was really weird. I don’t _like_ being responsible for all those people. But I couldn’t just leave them when most of their families and friends were just killed in the war. I didn’t _want_ to be a leader. It just kind of happened. I wanted to come back, I really did, but sometimes things just don’t work out like that. You can’t always get what you want.”

Stiles rolls his eyes at the cheesy line. He’s still feeling angry, but he knows he can’t stay angry at Scott forever. “You know they’re in jail, right? Derek’s pack, I mean.”

Scott nods slowly. “Yeah. But we’re going to get them out.”

Stiles’s head snaps up at that, staring at Scott with eyes so wide that it probably looks near humorous. “We’re doing _what_ now?”

Scott’s brows furrow now. “Well, if we want to stop this whole marriage thing, then we need as many allies as we can get. I know for sure that Derek’s pack will be all for overthrowing this thing.”

Stiles’ eyes are still comically large, and he’s at a total loss for words. “I wasn’t aware we were stopping this marriage thing!” he almost yells.

 Scott makes a gesture that implies that he should quiet down. “What, you want to stay married to Derek?”

“Well – no, of course not! But we can’t – Scott, do you have any idea how _crazy_ you sound?” Stiles whisper-yells. “Mariah or Jacob or _someone_ will kill you guys! What – are you _out of your mind_?”

“This isn’t right!” Scott protests angrily. “They can’t just force two people to get married–”

“Yes, Scott, yes, they can! If you haven’t noticed, that’s what they’ve _been_ doing! They are very, very capable of doing it, and I think everyone’s used to it by now, and I don’t want to die, and I don’t want you to die, so let’s just drop this insane idea that you have that we need to be heroes here! This isn’t our problem!”

“I don’t want to be married to Allison,” Scott admits, his voice a lot more vulnerable than it had been moments before, which gives Stiles pause. When it’s clear that Scott isn’t going to elaborate, Stiles takes initiative and asks the question that Scott has to know is coming.

“You were, like, in love with her before this all started,” Stiles says, confusion clear in his voice. “What do you mean, you don’t want to be married to her?”

“Things change,” Scott snaps, almost too defensively, and Stiles decides that the subject is a touchy one and drops it for now. He figures he’ll ask later, when they’ve grown accustomed to each other once again. “I know you don’t want to be married to Derek.”

Stiles hears the door opens and turns his head to see Derek entering the house again, scowling still.

“Of course I don’t,” Stiles says. “And Derek doesn’t want to be married to me, either. Right, big guy?” he shoots over his shoulder at him.

Derek frowns and glares at Stiles. “What do you think?” he grits out between his teeth, but the usual harshness isn’t there behind his words. He sounds somewhat distracted.

 “See? But we can’t just _overthrow_ the government!”

“ _What_?” Derek snaps from the corner of the room, causing both Scott and Stiles to whip their heads around to stare at him, but Derek is only glaring at Scott now. It feels nice, Stiles thinks, to see Derek’s glare directed at someone other than himself. “You told him?”

“Well… yeah,” Scott says dazedly. “He’s my best friend. How am I supposed to hide something like this from him?”

“That’s real touching,” Derek bites out, “but are you not aware that he can ruin everything?”

“Thanks for that vote of confidence,” Stiles cuts in. “By the way, thanks for telling me you have been apparently discussing escape plans with my best friend. It means a lot.”

“Stiles, shut up,” Derek says.

“Why are you so freaking convinced that I’m just this useless thing?” Stiles continues anyway. “Did you ever consider for a second that maybe I could be an asset?”

“No, more of a liability.”

“Guys, stop!” Scott interjects just as Stiles is about to bite out another sarcastic reply. “Look, it doesn’t matter, okay? Stiles knows; the cat’s out of the bag, so stop complaining!”

“We can’t tell him anything else.”

Stiles rolls his eyes at Derek’s melodramatics.

“Derek, he’s my best friend. We can trust him.”

“A lot can change in two years.”

“You guys are both crazy,” Stiles mutters. “What makes you guys think that you can start some kind of revolution? Huh? Erica couldn’t even protest without getting thrown in jail.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Derek spits out, “because you’re not involved in it. It’s none of your business.”

Stiles just stares at Derek for a moment before deciding that, yeah, he’s actually being serious. “Are you _kidding_?” he asks in something akin to disbelief. “I’m _married_ to you, Derek. I think that makes me as involved as I can get.”

This falls on deaf ears, though, because Derek only glares at Stiles. Then he turns to look at Scott and says, “You shouldn’t have told him.”

All three of them are silent then, sitting in a tense kind of silence, before Scott is saying softly, “I want to get them out.”

Derek and Stiles both stare at him in confusion. “Get who out of what?” Stiles asks.

“Derek’s pack,” Scott explains. “They need to get out of there.”

“Scott, buddy,” Stiles says, “I understand that you’ve got some weird werewolf attachment thing going on with them, but they’re really not worth risking your life over. I’m sure they’re great people and all that, but if you try to _break them out of jail_ , you’re actually going to die. It’s not worth it.”

“Yes, it is,” Scott tells him with a certain amount of force behind his words that tells Stiles that Scott sincerely believes that these three people are worth him dying over. “They need me. They _trust_ me. They don’t trust a lot of people, but they trust me.”

And Stiles knows that arguing with his friend on this one would be a lost cause, so he just lets this one go for now. Scott is one hundred percent convinced that he’s going to rescue Erica and Boyd and Isaac from this stupid jail.

“You can’t,” Derek surprises Stiles by piping up. “Not yet.”

“Why?” Scott asks, looking affronted at the idea. When Stiles turns to look at Derek, he sees that Derek’s staring at him, a slight frown creasing his forehead. And Stiles is so surprised to find that Derek’s actually looking at him with an expression that isn’t hostile or even really mean that he doesn’t even have time to analyze the look before Derek’s shifting his gaze over to Scott.

“It’s too early,” he mutters. “It’ll be suspicious.”

“Are you – you guys are actually going to do this?” Stiles asks with no little amount of disbelief. “You and what army? You guys have Erica, Boyd, and Isaac. Who else? Who’s going to go along with this little plan of yours that’s eventually going to lead to another war in which you will both get your asses blown up and die? You guys are crazy!”

“It’s still none of your business,” Derek tells Stiles, moving past him and into the kitchen.

“I am so tired of hearing you say that,” Stiles comments with an eye roll. “It’s really an exhausted line by now, Derek.”

“Stop asking questions, and you’ll never hear it again.”

Stiles looks at Scott, ignoring the loud opening and closing of cupboards from the kitchen. “You actually want to start a revolution with this guy?”

Scott shrugs, as if to say “What can you do?” “He’s a good guy,” is Scott’s only reply, though.

Stiles wants to laugh at that, but he bites his tongue, resolute to pry the information from Scott later when Derek isn’t in the room.   

 

-

 

Derek doesn’t leave.

He stays in the room all the time that Scott is there, hovering about in the kitchen or lying back on his bed under the guise of watching television, but Stiles could notice the way his watchful eyes kept darting over to Scott and himself, as if he knows Stiles is going to ask Scott for details on whatever insane thing they’re planning to do, and Derek also probably knows that Scott will tell him. So he doesn’t leave.

He does kick Scott off of his bed, forcing him to sit with Stiles on the couch, which Stiles doesn’t mind now that his initial bout of rage has left. They mostly make fun of whatever cheesy sitcom they’re watching and occasionally Derek, but Derek pointedly ignores their numerous jabs.

At one point, Stiles suggests leaving the house so that they could talk without Derek hovering near them, but Derek shoots down this idea instantly, saying that he would follow them. “It’s my responsibility now,” he had said. “I have to make sure Scott doesn’t ruin this anymore than he already has.”

Stiles rolls his eyes at this and groans in annoyance. But at least he knows at least something now. At least he’s not in the dark.

He knows that they’re going to try to start something. As of right now, he knows that Derek and Scott, along with Erica, Boyd, and Isaac, are planning to become some sort of revolutionary heroes. And Stiles knows that he needs to stop them. Because this isn’t some kind of science fiction novel. This isn’t a book by J.K. Rowling or Suzanne Collins. There’s no guarantee for a heroic ending, and Stiles is willing to bet anything that there isn’t going to be one.

But he also knows that he won’t be able to stop them. Derek and Scott are both stubborn as hell, so there’s no way they’re going to just drop what they’re doing because Stiles has a very strong feeling that it’s a bad idea. Not unless he turns them in, but he can’t do that, either. They’d both end up locked up in jail along with the rest of Derek’s pack. And Stiles won’t do that to them. Scott’s his best friend, and even though he can’t stand Derek most of the time… he’s really not all bad. And if Scott can see the good in him, then Stiles is willing to try. Derek doesn’t deserve to get put in jail just because he wants to end this whole thing. Admittedly, Stiles would be one hundred percent on board with this whole thing if he actually thought it would work. But six people against over a hundred government officials… there’s no way in hell.

So Stiles keeps his mouth shut for now until he can think of a convincing enough argument to get them to realize that they’re both basically endeavoring on a suicide mission.

 

-

 

“What would you say if I told you that I wanted to overthrow the government? Hypothetically, of course.”

Anne looks up at Stiles sharply from behind her desk, where she was seemingly filling out paperwork. She narrows her eyes at him suspiciously before looking back down at her paperwork and resuming her scribbling. “I’d say you’ve been talking to Derek.”

“What?” he asks, trying to feign surprise, though his voice went up a few octaves, and she can obviously tell when he’s lying due to the fact that she’s a werewolf. Stiles is immediately regretting even bringing it up. He’s so freaking _stupid_ ; obviously, she would be able to tell –

“I’m aware that Derek’s quite the plan-maker,” she explains, eyes still focused on the paper in front of her. “And I’m also aware how much he detests this whole system. I also know that you’re not ballsy enough to do something like that. So you’re essentially asking me about Derek Hale overthrowing the government but trying to cover it up by hypothetically using yourself as the example because you know I prefer you to Derek.” She does raise her eyes now, but only for a second, as she asks him, “Am I not right?”

Stiles coughs a bit to clear his suddenly dry throat. “That depends if you’re going to arrest him or not?”

It’s quiet for a few moments, and Stiles is beginning to think that he screwed up royally when she speaks again. “I’m not going to arrest Derek Hale. But I do suggest that you don’t get yourself involved.”

“Yeah, thanks for that, but trust me when I say that I’m already on that page. Actually, I already finished that book. I just don’t know how to change his mind.”

“Are you starting to care for Mr. Hale?” Anne inquires, staring straight at him this time.

“ _Me_? God, no,” Stiles answers instantaneously, as if the idea in and of itself is appalling. And it’s true; he doesn’t really care about Derek. Sure, he tolerates him, but there’s a difference between tolerance and caring. You tolerate your annoying neighbors; you tolerate the mailman; you tolerate the teenage barista at your favorite café. You don’t care for them.

“Are you sure about that, Stiles? So you wouldn’t care if I, say, told Mariah Perry about this little plan of his?”

Stiles rolls his eyes in annoyance. “Of course I would care if you told her about it!”

“Why would you care?”

“Because–” But Stiles falters here. Because… why _would_ he care? Yeah, Derek would go to jail. But that only means that Stiles would never have to see him again. And that’s essentially the idea. If he turns Derek in, that only means that he’d be out of Stiles’s life sooner. So now he’s faced with the question: What’s stopping him from turning Derek in?

Stiles tells himself that it’s because turning Derek in means turning Scott in. But in the back of his mind, he knows that there’s more to it than that.

“A little over fifty days in, and you’re already starting to care for someone who was once your otherwise enemy,” Anne mutters with a smirk in her voice.

“He wasn’t my enemy,” Stiles snaps at her, suddenly defensive. “I just hated him.”

“Hated. Past tense. But you don’t anymore, do you?”

“Well… I mean, I don’t know! I don’t like him, either! And what about you, huh?”

“What about me?”

“Why don’t you guys like each other? I know that he doesn’t like you, and I know that you don’t like him, but I don’t know why. I don’t hear you opening up about your relationship with him. And if you say that it’s none of my business, I swear to god, I’m going to stab myself in the head.”

She’s staring at him now with a curious and amused gaze, a smirk gracing her lips. “We have a bit of history, is all.”

Stiles frowns. “That’s barely an answer,” he scoffs.

“Have you ever noticed the scar on my face?” she asks, her gaze changing from amused to almost cold and hard.

Stiles blinks once, confused at the sudden change. “Uh… yeah.”

She nods. “I bet you didn’t know that Derek was the one who put it there.”

And this takes Stiles so completely by surprise. When he frowns this time, it’s more in something like anger than confusion. “Why?” he ends up asking, voice tinted with both bewilderment and displeasure.

“That’s something that I presume Derek will tell you when he decides that he wants you to know.”

“Derek doesn’t tell me anything ever,” Stiles protests.

“I have a feeling that he will, eventually.”

“Well, then, you obviously don’t know Derek very well.”

“I know him better than you think, Stiles,” she snaps out, voice a lot harsher than he expected it to be. “If you and I are going to be friends, then you should probably know better than to assume things about me.”

“Are we?” he asks. “Friends, I mean? Because I don’t see how a friendship between a human who’s married to someone who he doesn’t want to be married to can be friend with an Official werewolf whose job is to enforce said marriage.”

“Have I ever forced you to do something that you didn’t want to do, Stilinski? Because I don’t think I ever have. I’ve never forced you to be with Derek any more than possible. In fact, I let you come to my office whenever you want just to get away from him, which is something that I’m not supposed to do. I’ve been nothing but helpful towards you.”

Stiles knows that she’s right. He knows that he’s only angry because of the ever-building amount of secrets that’s being kept from him. And he knows that Anne’s the closest thing to a friend he has in this place, if he doesn’t include Scott. Even though she’s an Official, he knows that she wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize his or Derek’s life, despite the fact that she and Derek are at odds with each other. He knows that Derek would probably kill him or something if he knew that Stiles is talking to Anne about him, but it’s not like he really has anyone else to talk to, not really. He has Scott now, but he hasn’t had a chance to be alone with him yet, and it’s not like he’s just going to drop Anne out of his life now. That wouldn’t be fair. Because he still knows that she wouldn’t admit it, but he has the sneaking suspicion that Anne probably cares a great deal about him, too.

Before he has the chance to reply to her, there’s a knock at the office door. Anne sighs and looks at Stiles. “Would you get that for me?”

Stiles nods, standing up quickly and pulling the door open.

“Scott?” he asks in surprise. “What are you doing here?” Stiles knows that Scott lives on the same street as him, so Anne is his Official, too, but he’s still surprised to find Scott here for some reason. Logically, he knows that Scott maybe wants to call his mom or something, but… still.

But Scott’s entire posture changes from casual and relaxed to tense in a matter of seconds after Stiles has the door open, and he’s frowning, pushing Stiles aside and entering the office to look at Anne. And Anne looks up at him, and recognition lights her gaze almost immediately, and then she’s on her feet, too.

“I know you,” Scott says, and Stiles sees the claws elongating out of his fingers.

“Um…” he says awkwardly, looking back and forth between the two of them.

“You must be Scott McCall,” she says, and Stiles sees that her gaze is still amused, but her canines are elongated now, her claws protruding also, though her face is still human. “I must say, I’ve been looking forward to meeting the great Scott McCall, but I’m surprised to note that we’ve already met.”

“Wait, how do you guys know each other?” Stiles interjects confusedly.

“Stiles, get out,” Scott throws over his shoulder, moving ever closer to Anne.

“What? No! Are you guys really doing this? You’re actually going to fight? Scott, you’re going to get into trouble!”

“I don’t care!” Scott yells at him, and now Stiles can see that both Scott and Anne have wolfed out, and it’s the first time he’s seen Anne as a wolf.

“Stiles, get out!” Anne yells at Stiles, but Stiles holds his ground.

“I’m not leaving until you guys tell me what the hell is going on!” he argues.

And he’s not sure how it happens, but there’s suddenly an aching pain right behind his right ear, and he feels his whole body go almost numb before his vision is going black and he’s falling to the ground.


	7. 310 Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I already know I'm going to be a mess for a few days after tonight's episode, so I wanted to update this now before I lose all ability to write comprehensively. Enjoy! :)

When Stiles regains consciousness, he’s outside, and the earth is shaking underneath him. It’s still light out, but the sun is just beginning to sink below the horizon, spraying the pavement with a golden-pinkish color.

Then he realizes that he’s moving forward, but his feet aren’t on the ground. And the earth isn’t shaking, but he’s the one moving. Rather, he’s being carried, and his carrier is moving. And if he was ever curious to know what it felt like to be a damsel in distress, he knows now. And it _sucks_.

He groans then, shifting slightly in the arms that are carrying him. “Scott, put me down,” he mumbles, twisting away from his chest and towards the ground, but his arms only pull Stiles tighter against his torso in order to keep Stiles from tumbling to the ground. “Come on, Scott, I can walk.”

“No, you can’t.”

And, okay, that voice _definitely_ doesn’t belong to Scott. When Stiles shifts this time, it’s to look up at Derek’s face. He sees that Derek’s staring straight forward, almost resolutely so, and his jaw is clenched, his eyes guarded.

“Put me down,” Stiles demands, more forceful this time. “Seriously, Derek, I can walk.”

“No, Stiles, you really can’t,” Derek bites out. “You hit your head really hard.”

“ _I_ hit my head? No, _I_ didn’t do anything! _I_ tried to get Anne and Scott to stop fighting, and then someone hit _me_! And by the way, would you mind telling me exactly what the hell happened back there?”

“I’ll tell you when we get to the house,” Derek says. “Now stop moving before I drop you on your ass.”

“You’re actually going to tell me something? And, like, the truth?” Stiles asks, unable to hide his astonishment. Because frankly… well, that was about the last thing he was expecting.

“If you can shut up until we reach the house, then yes. But _only_ if you shut up.”

So Stiles bites his lips and lets Derek carry him (which, if that isn’t the most uncomfortable situation he’s ever been in, then he doesn’t know what is) all the way back to the house.

And, as it turns out, Derek isn’t done surprising him for the night. Because when they do finally get inside, Derek places Stiles on the bed instead of the couch before taking his own seat on the couch.

“Okay, why am I on your bed?” Stiles asks almost immediately because it’s definitely something that he thought Derek would never let him do. Stiles has never even touched Derek’s bed since that one time that Jacob Roberts stopped by. And now, lying down on it, his head sinking into the pillows… well, it’s _so much more comfortable_ than he ever even imagined.

“Because you’re hurt,” Derek says, as if that answers everything, but if anything, it only raises more questions. Like, “Why do you care if I’m hurt?” or “Why do you care about my comfort?” or “Why do you suddenly seem to care about me at all, anyway?”

But he doesn’t ask any of those questions because he knows that Derek wouldn’t answer them just as much as Stiles isn’t really sure if he would want to hear the answers, anyway.

“Okay…” he says instead. “So what happened?”

Stiles notes how uncomfortable Derek looks on the couch, but not only uncomfortable, but also… out of place. Because Stiles realizes that just as he’s never been on Derek’s bed, Derek’s never been on Stiles’s couch. And it’s somehow not right. Because that’s _his_ couch, and this is _Derek’s_ bed. And Derek’s sitting on the very edge of the couch, almost as if he’s not allowing himself to get comfortable on it, and then he sighs a hefty sigh and buries his face in his hands for a few seconds before raising it again and speaking.

“Scott and Anne were getting ready to fight, but Jacob intervened just before anything happened, and he mistakenly thought you were part of the fight, so he knocked you out first.”

“ _Jacob_ knocked me out?” Stiles asks in surprise. “He’s, like, the skinniest little thing in the world.”

Derek raises a slightly amused eyebrow at him. “It’s not that hard to knock someone like you out.”

“Someone like me? I’ll have you know, I–”

But Derek waves away Stiles’ protests. “Anyway, he hit you in the back of the head with a crowbar, which got Scott to stop snarling at Anne for long enough to decide that you were more important than the little feud he has with her.”

“I didn’t even know they had a feud,” Stiles mutters.

“Yeah, well, neither did I,” Derek admits. “He told you about that werewolf who attacked him? When he almost died? Turns out that was Anne.”

Stiles’ eyes widen. “Are you serious? Why?”

Derek shrugs. “Because when Anne has a temper, she’ll probably try to kill anything that moves. But that’s beside the point. So Jacob has Scott detained until Anne decides that she wants to let him out. Which, with your convincing, since you two are so freaking close, she’ll probably do soon enough.”

“Wait – _detained_?” Stiles asks. “You mean, like, _jail_ detained? Scott’s in _jail_? Why didn’t he just get Duty or something?”

“Nearly attacking an Official is cause for more than simply Duty, apparently,” Derek explains. “But I wouldn’t feel so bad for him, if I was you.”

Stiles frowns. “Really? And why is that?”

And the hint of an honest to god smile plays at Derek’s lips, which takes Stiles completely by surprise because he’s pretty sure he hasn’t seen a sincere smile come out of Derek in all the days that he’s been living with him thus far.

“Because all the cells were full,” Derek says, “so he got put in the same cell as Isaac.”

And Stiles’s frown only deepens because… what does that have to do with anything? “Okay… so…?” Stiles prompts.

“Scott hasn’t told you?” Derek asks, genuine surprise coloring his voice.

“No, told me what?”

And now a smile really does light his features, and Stiles is so taken aback that it takes him a moment to register the words that follow. “Scott’s got quite the crush on Isaac. And vice versa.”

When the words do sink in, Stiles finds himself thrown into a state of bewilderment. At first, he’s positive that he hasn’t heard Derek right, but then he thinks of Scott’s words when he’d asked about Allison. _Things change_. And he’s suddenly finding himself wondering if that thing is Isaac.

“Scott and Isaac?” he finds himself asking anyway, just because he needs that clarification.

Derek nods, smile still amused. “Yeah.”

“Isaac and Scott,” he mutters. The room is quiet for a few seconds while he mulls this over before he’s blurting out, “Your Isaac and my Scott?”

“Yes, Stiles,” Derek says. “My Isaac and your Scott.”

“Huh,” he mutters, adjusting his head so that he’s staring up at the ceiling instead of facing Derek. “Scott and Isaac. Who would’ve thought?” He makes a mental note to ask Scott about it later (and also to tease him endlessly). “So that’s why he wants to end this whole thing? Because he doesn’t want to be married to Allison because he likes Isaac?”

“That’s partly the reason,” Derek admits. “He and Allison get along fine. He would be okay staying with Allison. It’s more that he… just wants to get Isaac and the rest of them out of jail. And he also knows that this whole thing isn’t right. He can be thick sometimes, but he’s got good morals.”

“Hey, you don’t have to tell me twice. We were best friends for years.” And Derek doesn’t say anything more about it, so Stiles says, with sudden sleep in his voice, “Is that why you want to end it? Because you want to get your pack out of jail?”

Derek doesn’t answer at first, so Stiles assumes that he’s not going to, and he turns onto his side, facing the wall, in order to try to get some sleep, when he hears Derek saying, “There are multiple reasons why I want to end this.”

“I’m one of them, right?” Stiles’s sleepy brain decides is a good question to ask. “I’m one of the reasons.”

Derek doesn’t speak for so long that Stiles is pretty sure he’s half-dreaming when Derek’s response comes to him, convinced that he imagined the words. “No, Stiles. You’re not one of the reasons.”

 

-

 

The next few weeks pass with something akin to… easiness. And, more now than ever, that only causes Stiles to feel even more uneasy. With all the new information that’s come to light, he feels as though something should be happening, and if nothing is happening, it only means that something’s happening behind his back. And every day, he waits for Scott or Derek or _someone_ to fill him in, tell him what’s going on, but no one ever does, and he doesn’t push the subject, not yet.

He visits his dad frequently, but he still has yet to spend the night at his father’s house. Neither of them really bring up the option, and Stiles isn’t really sure why, but he’s resolute on staying with his father soon. He thinks a day away from Derek and Scott and Anne and all the craziness going on in that stupid little town would be good for him. For now, though, he settles on just visiting for a couple hours a day.

When he does visit his father, they talk about trivial things. Stiles’s dad doesn’t ask him about Derek, for which Stiles is eternally grateful. They talk about baseball and the Mets statistics because Stiles hasn’t been keeping up with baseball since moving. Stiles’s dad asks about lacrosse every time and if Stiles is still playing it every now and then, and Stiles tells him that he tries to whenever he has time, but he has a feeling that his dad knows he’s lying. The truth is, Stiles has just been feeling way too exhausted to even consider playing lacrosse, even now with Scott there with him.

Stiles convinces Anne to let Scott out of jail pretty easily. After he’s sure that Scott is out, he asks Anne about why she attacked him those years ago. She laughs humorlessly at the question, which kind of scares Stiles, but she only tells him that it had nothing to do with Scott personally, that she was just in a bad mood, and he was there. Stiles then proceeds to ask, “What if you’re in a bad mood when I’m there, huh? Are you going to try to kill me, too?”

She just tells him that she has a much better control over her temper now after two years of being an Official. Stiles isn’t so sure he believes this completely, but he doesn’t argue.

Nevertheless, he continues to visit her, too. He still likes talking to her, even though he has Scott now. Because Derek still doesn’t trust Scott and Stiles to be alone together apparently, so if Stiles wants to talk to someone with Derek hovering over them, his best option is Anne. He continues to view her of an ally of sorts, despite Derek’s continuous and exhausting opinions against this. Stiles has learned that ignoring Derek is a fairly easy thing to accomplish.

Stiles does ask Scott about Isaac, to which Scott responds with a copious amount of stammering and blushing. At first, he tries to deny it, but the more he stutters and negates, the more Stiles is convinced that some sort of puppy love thing is happening between the two. And Stiles does tease him about it, and every time he brings up Isaac’s name, Scott turns into a flustering mess. But Stiles is also happy for Scott, that he could somehow find some semblance of an unforced relationship in this nightmarish society. He’s still not really sure how it came about, and he’s not sure if he really wants to know all the gory details. But if Scott really likes this kid, then who’s he to keep them from each other?

Stiles isn’t really sure how their whole relationship is going to work when Isaac is locked away in a jail cell, but Stiles still isn’t going to talk Scott out of it.

And then there’s Derek. Derek, who perhaps is the strangest observation of them all. Because Derek… has so completely changed since the beginning of this whole thing, and Stiles doesn’t understand why. Because in the beginning, Derek was only ever harsh and mean and rude and hurtful and intimidating. And he still is, but just… not as often. And most of the time, when Derek is mean, there’s not as much venom in his words as there used to be. And every now and then, Stiles will catch Derek shooting him almost concerned glances. He covers up for this by yelling at Stiles, but Stiles still knows that they’re there.

Stiles doesn’t ever sleep on Derek’s bed again, and he’s grateful for this because sleeping in Derek’s bed caused intimacy to arise in places that neither of them want, so they both act as if that had never happened, and when Stiles falls asleep on his couch the next night, he pretends that he can’t smell the lingering scent of Derek there.

Derek still leaves the house every now again, and Stiles notes with no surprise that Scott goes along with him. Now that Stiles is a little less in the dark, he knows for sure that wherever Derek and Scott are going has something to do with this insane plan of theirs. And Stiles always had the sneaking suspicion that Derek was going to try to overthrow or whatever, but now that he knows this for sure, he feels both more relieved and uneasy at the same time because he’s still convinced that there’s no way a stupid, idiotic plan like this could work. But at least he knows something.

 

-

 

Stiles wakes up one morning to find that there are two garment bags hanging from the front door. He frowns slightly and rubs the sleep out of his eyes to focus them better before glancing over at Derek. Derek’s still fast asleep, snoring lightly and sprawled across the entire bed. Stiles rolls his eyes before sitting up on the couch and stretching through a yawn.

He stands and walks over to the bags, taking one off the door and reading the tag on it. It reads, “Derek Hale; Mariah’s Party.”

Stiles’ brows furrow deeper, and he pulls the other one off the door to find that this one has the tag “Stiles Stilinski; Mariah’s Party.” And, okay, he definitely doesn’t remember being invited to any kind of party.

“Derek,” he calls out to the sleeping form, but Derek doesn’t budge. “Derek,” he calls out, louder this time, but still, Derek doesn’t move.

Stiles sighs and glances around the room. He darts for the kitchen and grabs the box of cereal off the top of the refrigerator, smiling to himself and sitting on the couch before popping open the box and grabbing a handful of cereal pieces. He picks up a single one with his other hand and aims it at Derek’s open mouth, throwing it and missing by just a little bit. He grimaces and picks another piece, throwing this one, too, and missing by less this time. He’s just about to throw another piece when Derek rumbles, eyes still shut, “If you throw another piece of cereal at me, I will cut your head off and stake it in the front yard.”

Stiles barks out a laugh at that. “How else was I supposed to wake you up?”

Derek opens his eyes, and even full of sleep, he still manages to shoot Stiles a rather intimidating glare. “Throwing cereal pieces at my face was the only way you could think to wake me up? Really?”

Stiles shrugs. “It wasn’t the only way, but it was the funnest way.”

Derek rolls his eyes and sits up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. And, no, Stiles isn’t staring at the way Derek’s muscles move as he stretches his arms over his head, thank you very much.

“Funnest isn’t a word,” Derek says, jumping off the bed and moving in the general direction of the kitchen before pausing and looking at the two garment bags. “What are those?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” Stiles says. “That’s why I was trying to wake you up. I was hoping you would know.” He shoves the rest of the cereal in his hand into his mouth before closing the box and sliding past Derek into the kitchen to replace it back on top of the fridge.

Derek moves closer to the bags and reads the tags like Stiles did, but instead of looking confused, realization lights his features. “It’s her birthday,” he informs.

“Her birthday? You mean Mariah’s?”

“No, I mean the Tooth Fairy,” Derek snipes at him. “Yes, Mariah’s. Every year, she throws this huge party on her birthday, and everyone is expected to show up in the Square and celebrate, as if anyone actually gives a shit.”

“The Square?” Stiles asks in confusion.

“Yes, the Square,” Derek says almost tiredly, as if he’s explaining all this to a slow six-year-old. “The giant place in the middle of town with the gardens that look like they came out of a magazine and huge fountains?”

Stiles shakes his head at this, indicating that he has no clue what Derek’s talking about.

Derek sighs. “Well, whatever, you’ll find out soon enough, I guess,” he tells Stiles. “But anyway, the Officials of every street have to get nice tuxedos and dresses for everyone and then everyone’s supposed to show up in the evening and stay until well past midnight celebrating. The only reason people actually go is because it’s required, and it’s an excuse for everyone to leave the house past curfew and for the humans to get drunk.”

“So… let me get this straight,” Stiles says. “I have to dress up in a tuxedo to go to a birthday party for someone I don’t even like – hate would actually be a good word to describe it – and pretend like I’m having a good time even though I’m pretty sure we’re both going to end up miserable and leaving as soon as we’re allowed to, right?”

Derek doesn’t respond, so Stiles takes this as an acknowledgment of him being correct.

“Let’s agree to leave at different times,” Stiles says, picking up the garment bag with his name on it and laying it across the couch. “It’ll be incredibly awkward walking there together.”

“Can’t,” Derek says, looking away from Stiles as he says it. “We have to show up together. There are going to be Officials there taking attendance and making sure everyone’s there, and we’re not allowed in unless our partner is with us. But trust me, as soon as we get in, we can get as far away from each other as we like.”

“How do you even know all this?” Stiles asks. “Besides, what’s the worst that could even happen if we don’t show up?”

Derek sighs a heavy, exhausted sigh, like talking to Stiles is draining him of energy. “Because I actually paid attention at the Assembly. And if you don’t show up, you and I both are going to get Duty for two weeks, and you wouldn’t be allowed to even talk to your dad until Mariah decides that she’s done being a complete bitch and whining about people not loving her as much as they should.”

Stiles groans. “This is so fucked up. What kind of person forces people to go to her birthday party?”

“Mariah Perry,” Derek answers.

“Thanks for that, Captain Obvious.” But before Stiles even finishes the sentence, Derek is out the door, taking his tuxedo with him.

 

-

 

Stiles reads until he sees the sun beginning to set below the horizon. He had been waiting for Derek to return because, as Derek had told him, they’re supposed to get there together.

But Derek doesn’t come back, so Stiles opts instead to begin getting ready by himself. He supposes he should probably at least try to look nicer than usual, given that most people probably are, even though he couldn’t care less about this stupid party.

He gets into the shower and cleans himself extensively, and once he’s out, he brushes his teeth and towel-dries his hair. He notices for the first time just how long his hair has grown in the past two and a half months. He thinks it suits him.

Once he’s dry, he dresses in the stupid tuxedo (and this is the first time he’s ever worn a tuxedo, so all the separate pieces have him worrying about whether or not he’s doing it right, but he ends up deciding that it looks fine). After a few squirts of cologne, he finally allows himself to look in the full-body mirror hanging on the bathroom door, and he comes to realize quickly that he looks absolutely ridiculous. Sure, the tux fits fine. Actually, it’s a near perfect fit. But it just… doesn’t look right on his body. It makes him look somehow lankier than usual, and that’s not something he exactly wants to do.

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair before picking his book back up and continuing to read until Derek shows up. But after thirty minutes, Stiles can hear people outside beginning to make their way to the Square, and Derek still hasn’t turned up.

So Stiles decides that, if Derek is anywhere, he’d be at Scott’s house. So Stiles gets up and leaves the house quickly, weaving through the crowds of people until he arrives at Scott’s doorstep. The lights are still on inside, so he assumes they’re there, so he raises a hand and knocks on the door three times.

But Scott doesn’t answer the door. Allison does.

And it’s the first time that Stiles has seen Allison since before the war started, but, contrary to the situation with Scott, Stiles was the one who decided to sever their friendship. True, Allison had taken the initiative by blaming Stiles for Scott’s leaving and getting angry at Stiles for not telling her that Scott had been bitten, but that was only an instance of anger that anyone would have felt at just realizing that your boyfriend left you without a word. Rationally, Stiles knows that Allison probably would’ve continued talking to him if he’d given her the chance, but he made damn sure to not give her that chance.

And she looks absolutely gorgeous now, in a lavender dress that’s made from some kind of flow-y but sturdy material (Stiles knows there’s a name for it, but it’s not like he’s a fashion designer or anything), and it reaches all the way down to her toes, where her feet are covered in strappy silver heels. Her hair is pulled back into some kind of fancy up-do, and she’s wearing minimal makeup but enough that it draws attention to her best features.

“Hi, Allison,” Stiles breathes out, not sure what the proper etiquette is for a situation like this.

“Hey,” she says softly, averting her gaze as she says it.

Stiles thinks that maybe she’s still angry at him, but that doesn’t stop him from grabbing her and enveloping her in a hug. And she hugs back. Reluctantly, but she hugs back.

Scott appears behind Allison just as they let go of each other, and he’s smiling that trademark goofy Scott smile.

“Hey,” Scott says, moving so that he’s standing next to Allison. His smile shifts to a frown when he notices that Stiles is by himself. “Where’s Derek?”

Stiles follows suit and frowns, too. “I thought he would be here. He left hours ago.”

Scott shakes his head slowly. “No, I haven’t seen him. You should probably just wait at your house until he shows up. It’s not like he can get in without you, you know?”

Stiles nods once but steps aside so that Allison and Scott can get by him. He notices that they’re holding hands, and Stiles finds that he’s happy that Scott and Allison can remain friends after everything that’s happened, everything that’s still happening.

Stiles makes his way back to the house, pushing against the crowd of people moving the opposite direction of him. When he enters his house once again, Derek still isn’t there, but after standing in the middle of the room for a few minutes, facing the wall opposite the door, he hears the door open and he slumps in relief.

“Finally,” he breathes out. “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to show up after lecturing me on how important it is to show up.”

When he turns around, he sees that Derek’s standing still in the doorway, an odd expression on his face, one that Stiles has never seen before. He frowns slightly as he watches Derek do a quick onceover of Stiles, eyes landing on Stiles’s face, and then Stiles does the same to Derek, just because how often is it that you get to see Derek wearing a tuxedo? But then he realizes that it’s probably a bad idea because, if he thought his tuxedo was a perfect fit, that was only because he hadn’t seen Derek in _his_ tuxedo yet, and Derek’s tux is a _perfect fit_.

Stiles’s eyes land on Derek’s face, and he just stares for a moment, trying to figure out just what it is that looks different about him. Then he realizes that there’s less stubble on his face than usual. It’s still there, but there’s just… less. Surprisingly, Stiles finds himself preferring the stubble.

But then his eyes land on Derek’s own, and he notices with a start that Derek’s been staring at him for a few moments, and Stiles was staring at him too, and he’s still staring at him, and they’re just staring at each other, and Stiles knows he should feel awkward or something, but mostly, he just feels… nervous. And then he’s tugging at the sleeve of his tux, feeling suddenly self-conscious under Derek’s heavy gaze because Derek definitely wears the tuxedo better than Stiles does. And Stiles can feel his heart beating faster than usual, but he doesn’t for the life of him understand _why_ because it’s just Derek.

It’s just Derek. Derek, who can probably hear his heart beating, and, _god_ , this really couldn’t get any worse.

Stiles is the one who breaks the silence, shifting his gaze to the floor and rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “So, um, we should probably head out,” he mutters.

And then Derek is moving towards him, and when Stiles lifts his head, he sees that Derek is staring down, not at Stiles’s face, but at his… chest? Neck? Stiles isn’t sure until Derek’s hands reach out, tugging at Stiles’s bowtie. Stiles frowns down at Derek’s hands for a second, and when they’re pulling away, Stiles looks up to see that Derek’s almost… smiling at him.

“It was crooked,” he says quietly, and they do that staring thing again that Stiles isn’t sure if he likes or not – on the one hand, it’s a lot better than Derek yelling at him because Stiles really doesn’t like it when Derek yells; on the other hand, it’s a lot worse than Derek yelling at him because there’s a sudden intimacy there that Stiles (and presumably Derek) is uncomfortable with – and then Derek is backing away quickly, turning his back to Stiles and opening the door again.

“It doesn’t really matter,” Stiles mumbles. “I’m going to look ridiculous either way.”

Derek turns back towards Stiles, holding the door open and gesturing in a way that suggests that Stiles should leave first. So he does, moving past Derek and walking outside, standing on the pathway just outside their house and waiting for Derek to follow behind him. There are less people on the sidewalks outside now; apparently, everyone likes to get their early.

When Derek finally does join him on the sidewalk, he coughs a little next to him and begins to walk at a steady pace, Stiles falling into step beside him almost easily. It’s strange, Stiles thinks, Derek actually trying to keep pace with him rather than walking ahead of him and making Stiles jog to keep up, causing him to want to stab Derek repeatedly in the face.

That’s another thing that’s strange, Stiles realizes. The urge to stab Derek has dwindled slightly since he passed out in Anne’s office. He still has the feeling always lingering in the back of his mind (or when Derek gets him angry, the feeling is right in the forefront), but he feels the impulse to act has gone down significantly.

“You don’t,” Derek says suddenly.

Stiles looks at him sharply, confusion coloring his features. They’d been walking in silence for at least ten minutes, and Stiles had already come to terms with the fact that they wouldn’t be talking to each other for the majority of the night. “What?” he asks stupidly.

Derek doesn’t answer for a moment, his jaw tightening and turning his gaze away from Stiles. Stiles sighs and runs his hands through his hair, not expecting any kind of explanation, when Derek returns his gaze straight ahead of him and mumbles, “You don’t look ridiculous.”

Stiles’ brows furrow a bit, and he’s waiting for the second half of that remark, waits for Derek to continue with something along the lines of, “A monkey in a tuxedo would look ridiculous; you just look stupid,” or “Half the people here look ridiculous; ridiculous doesn’t even begin to describe your situation,” but it doesn’t come. Just those four words. “You don’t look ridiculous.”

 

-

 

Stiles enjoys a good party just as much as the next guy. And, granted, this party is a lot better than he had originally anticipated. But he doesn’t exactly have anyone to dance with, so he’s just been sitting on one of the benches in front of one of the fountains and sipping at Pepsi out of a red plastic cup and watching everyone else do their thing.

As soon as they got past the Officials who were taking attendance, Mariah had gotten on a makeshift stage at the front of the party and gave opening remarks before telling everyone to have a good time and enjoy the one night of the year where they can all stay out late doing who knows what. And after she got off the stage, Derek had left immediately, pushing through the crowd of people and going somewhere else, somewhere away from Stiles. Stiles knew that that was going to happen, so he only rolled his eyes and took a seat on the bench.

He spots Allison and Scott dancing together, and he can tell that they’re having a relatively good time, so Stiles doesn’t step in to talk to them or anything.

He’s not drinking alcohol himself because he knows how he gets when he drinks. He gets silly and stupid and says things that don’t even make sense. So he settles on Pepsi instead.

“Having fun?” a voice asks next to him, and he turns to see Anne sitting there, a smile on her bright red lips.

He smiles at her, thankful that someone’s decide to take pity on him and hold conversation. And Anne looks beautiful tonight, too. Granted, pretty much everyone does. Anne’s wearing a short, bright red dress that should probably clash with her bright red hair, but somehow, it only seems to compliment her. Her hair, unlike most of the girls tonight, isn’t pulled into an up-do but is falling is full curls rather than th wavy hair she usually wears. She’s also wearing bright red lipstick and heels that look like the golden version of Allison’s silver ones. She has dark eyeliner ringing her blue-green eyes that make them appear brighter than they already are. All of this only serves to make her skin appear paler, but that’s okay because she still looks stunning, nevertheless.

Stiles shrugs. “If sitting by myself for an hour is fun, then I’m having a blast,” he retorts. “What about you?”

“If kissing Mariah’s ass all day is fun, then I’m having a blast, too,” she says, smile growing. “Where’s tall, dark, and handsome?”

“What, you mean Derek?” Stiles asks. “I thought you didn’t like him.”

“I didn’t mean Derek,” Anne replies. “I meant Scott.”

Stiles turns to look at her in surprise. “Do you have a crush on Scott? You nearly killed him!”

Anne waves a hand in dismissal, glancing around at all the dancing faces in the crowd. “That was when I was stupid and not in control of my wolf, Stiles.”

“Wait – so you actually have a crush on Scott? Why does everyone always seem to have a crush on Scott?” Stiles rolls his eyes. “You might as well give up. He’s already got someone in mind. He’s got a bad case of puppy love going on.”

“What, with Allison?” she asks, and she seems to spot them in the crowd dancing together. “Not with the way he’s looking at her. Trust me, I know that look. That’s the look that says, ‘I really like you, but we’re only friends.’”

“Not Allison,” Stiles corrects. “Isaac.”

Anne frowns and turns her head sharply in Stiles’s direction. “Isaac? The Isaac who’s in jail Isaac? The Isaac in Derek’s pack?”

Stiles nods. “Yeah. He’s smitten.”

Anne slumps a bit in her seat, looking at Stiles. “Isaac’s a good kid. I know I give Derek’s pack a rough time, but they’re good kids. If you ever tell them I said that about them, though, I will not hesitate to rip you apart.”

Stiles laughs. “It’s a deal,” he says, sipping more Pepsi.

“You’re not drinking alcohol?” Anne asks suddenly.

Stiles shakes his head. “No, I don’t really want to make a fool of myself in front of all these people. Thanks for the offer, though.”

“Stiles,” Anne says, placing one of her hands on top of Stiles’s. “Every human here is getting drunk. The wolves would, too, if they were capable of it. Trust me. The one thing I miss since turning into a werewolf is getting drunk. And everyone’s making a fool of themselves, drunk or not. Loosen up a bit.”

“I don’t know,” Stiles says slowly, but Anne’s already standing up, pulling him to his feet, too.

“Stiles, as your friend, I’m making it my personal mission to get you wasted.”

“Anne, I really don’t want to,” Stiles protests, trying to tug his arm out of her grasp as she pushes through the crowd of dancers.

Once they get to the liquor table, Anne turns to him and places both hands on either of his shoulders. “If you really don’t want to, I won’t make you. But think long and hard about it. Because this might be the only chance you get, you know.”

“I’m sure,” he tells her firmly. “Maybe later. But it’s only, what, ten o’clock right now? It’s too early to get shitfaced.”

Anne laughs and opens her mouth to reply when there’s suddenly a scream and the sound of a gun going off piercing the air. At first, Stiles thinks maybe it’s a joke or maybe there are fireworks going off, but then he notices that everyone in the crowd has stopped dancing and instead is looking off into the distance, and the mood in the air has changed quickly from fun and playful to tense and afraid.

“What was that?” Stiles asks Anne, but she only shakes her head.

“I’m not sure,” she admits.

And then another shot goes off, but there’s no blast of color in the sky, so it’s definitely not fireworks.

More people begin screaming, and then everyone’s running every which way, and Stiles is thrown into an utter state of confusion as chaos breaks out in the crowd. He scans everyone’s faces, searching for Scott or Allison – hell, even Derek – because he wants to know that they’re okay. He wants to know that they’re not getting shot.

More than anything, he wants to make sure they’re not behind it. Because with all the talk of them trying to overthrow this system – what better time than now, when everyone’s crowded together? He wants to believe that they’re not that stupid, but if they’re really desperate to end it… well, anything could be possible.

And then he spots Derek’s face, looking straight at Stiles, and he looks just as confused as Stiles feels. Then Anne’s grabbing him by the shoulders and shoving him the other way.

“Go home,” she growls in his ear, shifting into her wolf form.

“I – what? No!” Stiles argues.

“Stiles, do you not see the thousands of people running for their lives? That’s the first sign that something’s wrong, and you should go home!”

“What’s happening?” he demands. “I’m not leaving until you tell me!”

“Stiles–” she begins, but then another shot goes off, and she’s falling to the floor, and Stiles sees the blood falling from her shoulder, and he doesn’t even think when he gets on his knees next to her to make sure she’s okay.

“Anne? Are you okay?” he asks, his voice panicked.

“I’m fine,” she grits out. “I’ll be fine. I’ll start healing in a minute. Just _leave_.”

Stiles looks up, trying to find the shooter, and then he spots her. He recognizes her just faintly, and he tries to put a name to her face, but he can’t. But then he realizes that he knows her because it’s the girl who he talked to for a minute or two when he got put in jail that one time, the one who said she used to be involved with Derek.

“Who is that?” Stiles asks Anne, pointing to the girl.

Anne follows the direction of his finger, and when she spots her, her eyes widen. “But she’s supposed to be in jail,” Anne breathes out.

“Who? Who is it?” Stiles asks again.

Anne doesn’t answer him for a moment, instead urging him to leave, but Stiles doesn’t budge, not until he gets this one piece of information from her.

“It’s Argent,” Anne finally hisses at him, pushing him away from her. “Kate Argent.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that that was probably really predictable, my apologies. On a side note, I've been thinking of writing a mini Isaac/Scott story, maybe about six or seven chapters long, set in this universe explaining how they became a thing. Would anyone be interested in something like that? 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy tonight's episode. :)


	8. 290 Days

He pushes his way through the screaming crowds of people and makes it back to his house in decent time, and he’s surprised to find that Derek’s already there when he enters. For some reason, he had the thought in his head that Derek wouldn’t be coming back tonight, not after what had just happened. But not only is he here, but he was here before Stiles was.

Before Stiles can say anything, though, Derek is already moving forward, grabbing one of Stiles’ arms and frowning deeply. Then he does a onceover of Stiles, much like he did earlier before they left for the party, but his expression is much different this time.

“You’re bleeding,” he says suddenly, and then he’s pulling at the hem of Stiles’s jacket and trying to tug it off, but Stiles yelps and tries to smack his hands away.

“I am not,” he protests, stepping out of Derek’s reach. “And, by the way, I’m pretty sure what you just did constitutes as sexual assault.”

 “Now is not a time to be making stupid jokes, Stiles,” Derek says angrily, stepping closer to Stiles again. “There’s blood all over you. Did you get shot?”

Stiles looks down to see that, yes, there is indeed a copious amount of blood covering his torso along with his arms and hands. “No,” he answers, voice uncertain. “I mean, I don’t think so. There were a lot of shots and a lot of noise. I don’t feel like I got shot. I mean, I would feel that, right?”

“That depends on how much adrenaline you have running through your body.” Derek’s words are hard, but Stiles can see what looks almost like concern lingering in his eyes.

“I don’t think it’s my blood,” Stiles says. “I think – Anne, she got shot, and I was standing right next to her. I think it’s her blood.”

“Well, we have to make sure,” Derek insists, running his hands through his hair. “Take off your shirt.”

“What? No!” Stiles nearly shouts, backing away from Derek once more. “Look, I’m fine, okay? I swear.”

“Stiles, just take off your damn shirt!”

Stiles stares at Derek for a moment, and even though Derek’s words were loud and angry, Stiles can see in the way he’s holding himself, in the way his shoulders are tensed and the way his face is guarded, in the way his voice is getting slightly desperate, in the way that his eyes are almost pleading with Stiles, that Derek’s actually somewhat concerned. About Stiles. Derek is concerned about him. And that’s a scary prospect for Stiles to consider because, _no_ , friendship or feelings or intimacy of any kind isn’t supposed to be in this equation. They’re supposed to just hate each other until their year is over and then get a divorce. Derek can’t go around acting concerned for him. That raises too many unwanted questions.

“Fine. I’ll let you play doctor or whatever it is you want to do but only if you tell me what’s going on.”

Derek sighs heavily, scrubbing at his face with his palms. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

Stiles throws his arms into the air in exasperation. “Would it kill you to tell me the truth, Derek? For once in your stupid life, could you tell me the fucking truth?”

“I am telling you the truth, Stiles! I don’t know how Kate got out of jail, and I don’t know what she’s doing shooting people, and I sure as hell don’t know what’s happening right now, so will you please just take off your fucking shirt so I can make sure you’re okay?”

For a moment, Stiles doesn’t say or do anything. Because really, what do you say to that? Derek pretty much just admitted to him that he wants Stiles to be okay. He pretty much just admitted that he cares about Stiles, in some kind of twisted way.

So Stiles tugs off his jacket and throws it to the floor before un-tucking his dress shirt and unbuttoning it, pulling that off of his shoulders, too. Before he even gets a chance to look down at himself, to confirm to himself that he hasn’t been shot, Derek’s right there again, and before Stiles even registers what’s happening, Derek’s hands are on him, pressing against his torso and his chest, running up and down his sides once, turning him around and inspecting his back. And Stiles doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to do, so he just shuts up and stays still and lets Derek do whatever he needs to do to reassure himself. More than anything, Stiles wants to gain back some semblance of normalcy; he wants to go back to fighting with Derek over stupid things and disliking each other. And if this is what it takes to get that back, then Stiles will go with it.

And Stiles ignores the way that his heart quickens at Derek’s touch, and if he has to catch his breath at the feel of Derek’s hands, then it’s just because it caught him by surprise, that’s all. Honestly. And, no, he definitely does _not_ like the way Derek’s hands feel against him, thanks.

After a minute or so, Derek steps away from Stiles, and Stiles rolls his eyes and runs his hands through his hair, shaking himself out of whatever weird atmosphere he was just in. “Are you satisfied? Hm?”

“You said Anne got shot,” Derek says abruptly, turning away from Stiles.

Stiles groans and bends to pick up the dress shirt he had previously discarded, putting it back on and buttoning it up. “Yeah, she did.”

“Kate shot her?”

“Unless there were two psychopath killers with guns out there? Yeah, it was. And by the way, who the hell is Kate, exactly? Do you mind explaining that to me?”

“Stiles–” Derek begins to protest, but Stiles is swiftly interrupting whatever arguments Derek has.

“No, Derek, you are going to tell me who the hell Kate is and how you know her right now. Because, contrary to what you may think, I _can_ handle it. What, just because I’m a human, you think I’m not capable of understanding whatever you’re hiding from me? Because that’s a bunch of bullshit. I went through the same war everyone else did. I saw people die, too. I lost friends and family. And I could handle all of that. So I’m pretty sure whatever secrets you’re keeping, _I can handle it_. In fact, I’m pretty sure the only thing I _can’t_ handle is you and Scott and my dad and everyone keeping shit from me! So tell me who Kate Argent is _now_.”

The end of his tirade is met with silence. The room falls eerily quiet, and Stiles didn’t really realize how loud he was talking until now, and he finds himself short of breath.

“I used to be… involved with Kate,” Derek finally admits, voice a lot quieter than Stiles’s had been. Stiles had expected Derek to dismiss his argument or to be angry or to just leave, but instead, he’s actually answering Stiles’s question. And that more than anything else surprises Stiles.

“What, like… dated?” Stiles asks.

“Not really,” Derek explains, and now he takes a seat on the edge of his bed, dropping his head a little. “There was a lot more body parts involved than talking.”

Stiles feels as if he ought to be repulsed by the statement, but the hard – almost angry – tone of Derek’s voice only makes Stiles feel… almost sorry for him. Which is something he’s never felt for Derek before. It was something he never really expected to feel for Derek, of all people. “That was an image I definitely did not ever need, thanks,” Stiles replies, trying to gain some level of normalcy. But Derek doesn’t continue, so Stiles takes the initiative and prompts, “Okay, so… what happened? Did you break her heart? Make her vengeful of all werewolves everywhere?”

“Stiles, she’s an Argent,” Derek spits out, raising his head and looking Stiles straight in the eyes, his own eyes hard and angry and guarded. “In case you’ve forgotten, Argents aren’t very fond of werewolves.”

“Okay, so she tried to kill you?” Stiles asks, digging for more information because Derek hasn’t really given him much to go off of here.

“She wouldn’t be in jail for trying to kill me.”

“Okay…” Stiles says, drawing out the word so that it sounds more like an uncertain question. “So… she did something worse than try to kill you? You’ve got to stop being so cryptic, Derek.”

Derek rolls his eyes melodramatically and heaves a gusty sigh. “She’s the one who set my house on fire. She’s the one who killed my whole family.”

Stiles feels his eyes widen at that, and he isn’t really sure why. Because it makes sense. She’s an Argent who hates werewolves, so, logically, she tried to kill a houseful of werewolves and got put in jail for it. So Stiles isn’t sure why he feels so surprised, but he is, nevertheless. He opens his mouth to reply, but then there’s a knock at the door, and before either himself or Derek can answer, the door’s already being swung open. Stiles turns to see Anne standing in the doorway, smiling in what looks to be a reassuring smile at Stiles before focusing her eyes on Derek. And she stares at Derek for a moment, and she seems to be trying to communicate something to him, and Stiles wants to ask what she’s trying to tell him, but before he can even open his mouth, Anne’s speaking.

“Mariah Perry wants everyone to go back to the Square,” she tells them.

Stiles’ eyes go to her shoulder where he saw her get shot earlier in the evening, and he can see that she’s already healed. She also changed out of her dress, and she’s now wearing a white muscle tank and black cotton shorts. He realizes that this is only the second time he’s seen her wear something out of her usual Official uniform, the first being the dress she wore to the party. He supposes he should probably change, too; after all, his shirt is still covered in drying blood, which is uncomfortable, and he suddenly feels overdressed given the current occasion despite the fact that Derek’s still wearing his tuxedo, too, including the jacket and bowtie, which Stiles has since discarded.

“She wants us to go back there even though Kate Argent is out there trying to kill every werewolf in sight?” Derek snarls at her, voice incredulous.

“No, dumbass,” she spits at him, and there’s more hostility in her voice than she’s ever used when talking to Stiles. He remembers that Derek’s the one who put that scar on her face then, a fact which he seems to be forgetting often. “They put her back in jail. Though they put her in a wolf cell, since apparently a human cell just doesn’t do it for her. And now Mariah and Jacob have some announcements or whatever, so we all have to go back.”

She stares at Derek for a moment, face hard, before she backs away and slams the door. Stiles groans softly and makes his way to the door to follow behind, not caring at this point if Derek’s following or not, when Derek says, “Someone let her out. There’s no way she got out by herself.”

“Who, Kate?” Stiles asks, the door open halfway as he turns back to Derek, frowning slightly.

Derek nods, and he seems lost in thought for a moment before he seems to come back to reality, and then he’s scowling at Stiles’s shirt. “Will you at least change your shirt? You’re covered in blood. I don’t think people will take that lightly.”

“What? It’s not like I killed anyone,” Stiles argues because, really, that is definitely the least of his problems right now.

“It’s not like anyone’s going to know that. Just change your shirt.”

Stiles stares at Derek for a moment, scowling, before he sighs and shuts the door, pulling the shirt off once more. “You know, if I didn’t know better,” he mutters, moving to the bottom drawer of the dresser (Derek had given in and let him use at least one of the drawers after Stiles had bugged him about it enough) and opening it to retrieve a clean shirt, “I’d say you like seeing me naked, considering how often you’re making me take my shirt off.”

“I’d say you’re stupid,” Derek barks out, and Stiles has to muffle an inappropriate chuckle at the exasperation in his voice.

“Um…” Stiles says once he yanks the drawer open. “Well, we have a problem.”

“What are you talking about?” Derek snaps at his back.

Stiles shuts the dresser drawer and walks over to the tiny closet at the end of the only hall in the house, shoving it open and pulling open the door to the washing machine. He turns back to Derek, a sheepish hand rubbing at the back of his neck. “All my shirts are in the wash.”

“ _All_ of them?” Derek asks disbelievingly.

“Hey, if I don’t have to do laundry, then I’ll put it off as long as possibly possible,” Stiles says in his defense because, really, who wants to waste their time doing laundry? So, yeah, it only takes about three minutes to take all your clothes and shove them into a washing machine and pour in some detergent, but that’s entirely too much effort if you already have at least one clean shirt.

“You’re serious,” Derek says with something that almost sounds like amusement, but that amusement is far overshadowed by annoyance.

“Look, it really doesn’t matter, okay? A psycho werewolf murderer was just out there shooting people; I’m sure that the blood on my shirt isn’t going to raise any kind of suspicions against me.”

But Derek is already opening the top drawer and withdrawing a shirt from there, throwing it across the room at Stiles. Stiles barely catches it, and when he does, he shakes it out in front of him to see that it’s a mossy green t-shirt. Derek’s mossy green t-shirt.

“You want me to wear your shirt? It isn’t even going to fit me right! It’ll be way too big.”

“Just put on the stupid shirt,” Derek says. 

“Oh, my god,” Stiles grunts out, but he does it, anyway, if only to get Derek to stop acting like such a baby.

(Okay, so maybe “baby” isn’t the right description, but Stiles needs to pin some kind of demeaning word onto Derek’s bad attitude, and he refuses to think of Derek as intimidating.)

Stiles tugs the shirt over his head, and, yeah, it’s definitely too big on him. It’s not his fault that he’s not freakishly built like every werewolf on the face of the planet seems to be. And so he doesn’t really get self-conscious about his lack of muscles (because he _does_ have muscles, just not as much compared to a werewolf), but he feels stupidly childish wearing Derek’s t-shirt that’s too big for him. He feels like he did that one time when he was in the fourth grade and he fell into Lydia Martin’s pool at her birthday party, and he had panicked, and everything he knew about swimming left his mind, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t resurface. And then her mother had pulled him out of the pool, and she called his dad, and they wrapped him in a towel while he waited for his dad to pick him up. And everyone just stared at him with these pitying eyes because what kind of fourth grader doesn’t know how to swim? And when he got home, his mother had dressed him in one of his dad’s old shirts, and he fell asleep in her arms that night, crying silent tears because he was so utterly humiliated.

Granted, he doesn’t feel humiliated now, but he feels far too young in Derek’s shirt, and he feels suddenly self-conscious, as if he’s done something wrong, and when he looks up at Derek, Derek’s just… staring at him expectantly, and that only makes it worse because Derek probably thinks Stiles looks as stupid and young as he knows he does, so he turns away from Derek and opens the door again, walking out and not waiting for Derek to follow behind.

 

-

 

Nearly everyone is already assembled in the Square when they get there. Anne was apparently waiting for them in the back, however, so when she spots them, she smiles and waves them over. Stiles goes to her immediately.

Right as he arrives at her side, Mariah and Jacob are taking the stage, and Mariah is clearing her throat and silencing the crowd of people assembled in front of the stage.

“As you all know, we’ve had an… unexpected occurrence tonight. However, no one was seriously injured. Only three people had gotten shot, and they were all werewolves. As the bullets did not contain wolfs bane, they were able to heal quickly. Cheyenne Florence, please join me on the stage.”

Stiles looks at Anne in surprise, and he watches as her brows knit together just a bit before she schools her expression back into one of indifference. She pushes through the tight crowd of people in front of them and makes her way to the stage, standing next to Mariah.

“Cheyenne,” Mariah begins, turning to face her. “I have been informed that you were the last one seen in the jail. Is this true?”

Anne’s full on frowning now, face etched with confusion. “I – what?”

“When was the last time you were in the jail where Kate Argent was kept?”

Anne doesn’t answer for a moment, but then she says, her voice hard and jaw clenched, “Right before the dance began, Ms. Perry.”

Mariah makes a humming noise, and then she falls silent, and everyone in the crowd is quiet, so quiet that Stiles can hear Derek’s breathing next to him.

“Did you or did you not, Ms. Florence, let Kate Argent out of her cell?”

And now people do start talking quietly to the people next to them, a buzz of chatter erupting quietly in the crowd as they express their surprise and speculate and whatnot.

“Are you really accusing me of this? She shot me!” Anne argues, but Mariah is laughing quietly, humorlessly, interrupting whatever protests Anne may or may not have.

“You planned it perfectly, didn’t you? Get Anne out of jail, tell her to shoot you so no one would suspect it.”

“Are you crazy?” Anne shouts, and it’s the first time Stiles has ever heard anyone shout at Mariah Perry, and it’s actually pretty scary. As confused as he is by this whole situation, he has to admire Anne for standing up to her. “Why the hell would I do that, Ms. Perry? What’s my motive?”

“She’s telling the truth.” Derek’s voice is suddenly right at Stiles’s ear, and Stiles turns to look at Derek, but Derek’s only staring straight ahead, watching the whole scene with a furrowed brow.

“Who, Anne?” Stiles asks, surprise coloring his voice because Derek is actually informing him about something without him asking.

“No,” Derek answers him, and Stiles can hear the confusion in his own voice. “Both of them. Anne’s telling the truth when she says she didn’t do it, but Mariah’s telling the truth when she says it’s Anne.”

“Okay, but how is that possible?”

“Either Anne’s really good at lying,” Derek explains, “or Mariah really believes that Anne did it and she’s wrong.”

“Do you think Anne did it?” Stiles inquires, peering at Derek in his periphery. He sees Derek’s jaw clench just a bit before he answers.

“No. Anne hates Kate just as much as I do. This doesn’t make sense.”

“Your motive,” Mariah continues, breaking off Stiles and Derek’s side conversation, “is Derek Hale.”

 

-

 

A lot happens quickly after that. First, everyone turns their gazes to seek out Derek, staring at him with wide and accusatory eyes. Stiles does this, too, though his eyes are more surprised and questioning than accusatory.

Next, Anne is being dragged off the stage by two other Officials, and she’s screaming and kicking, and Stiles always knew that she wasn’t one to go down without a fight, but at least she’s smart enough to not make this situation even worse by turning.

Then Mariah is telling everyone to go home, and no one moves for a moment or so, apparently shocked at what had just happened. But at another sharp command from Mariah, people are turning away from the stage and making their way back to their houses. Stiles and Derek are among the last of the people to turn and walk away despite the fact that they were perhaps the farthest back.

Stiles holds his ground and crosses his arms over his chest, staring at Derek and waiting for him to say something, anything, that explains why Mariah would think that he could be some kind of motivation for Anne to let Kate out of jail.

But then Derek turns brusquely and begins walking without a backwards glance at Stiles, and this time, Stiles does have to struggle to keep pace with him.

“So?” Stiles asks once they’re back in the house, Stiles almost slamming the door behind him.

“So what?” Derek tosses over his shoulder, and then he’s shrugging off his jacket and removing his bowtie and shirt, and, no, Stiles is not going to let himself get distracted.

“So why are you ‘motive’ for Anne to do this?” Stiles clarifies in annoyance because _obviously_ Derek knows what he’s talking about.

“I’m not because Anne didn’t do it. And, no, I don’t know who did it, but I know it wasn’t Anne.” He opens up the top drawer and takes out a shirt, pulling it over his head.

“You know what I mean,” Stiles insists. “Why does Mariah think it’s because of you? Why would she say that?”

Derek sighs in what sounds like annoyance before facing Stiles, his jaw clenched. “Because Mariah doesn’t like me, and Mariah knows that Anne doesn’t like me, so she knew it would be believable to blame it all on me.”

“But _why_? Why doesn’t Anne like you? And why doesn’t Mariah like you? The sooner you answer my questions, the sooner I’ll stop talking to you.”

Derek stares at Stiles for a moment, as if he’s considering his options; which would he prefer: an annoying Stiles or telling Stiles the truth? Stiles has a feeling that Derek hates both options equally.

Derek sits heavily on his bed and rubs his hands across his face. “Anne and I used to be friends,” he explains. “Well, more than that, I guess. She was part of my pack.”

Stiles can feel his brows raise in surprise at this because of all the things Derek could have said, this was the one that Stiles was least expecting. This was one that Stiles didn’t even think was an option.

“She has a different alpha, but when we all lived together in that barn during the war, we were all basically part of the same pack. She doesn’t even know who bit her. She’s an omega, like Scott. But she wanted to leave. She thought that us fighting against humans was a stupid idea and that we would get everyone in our group killed. And we did lose some people, but it was a war. What do you expect? Anyway, she left the night that I found Scott. And I only found Scott because I was trying to look for her. She was so worried about getting killed, but being on her own only made her chances of getting killed that much larger. And I tried to stop her from leaving. She was a fairly new werewolf, though, so she wasn’t exactly fully in control of her transformations. She transformed, and when I tried to stop her, she attacked me. So of course I had to fight back.”

“That’s how she got that scar on her face,” Stiles mutters to himself.

Derek nods slowly. “I didn’t want to hurt her. But if I didn’t, she could’ve killed me, just like she would’ve killed Scott if I didn’t find him. That’s why I stopped looking for her. When I saw Scott bleeding out in the middle of the woods, I could smell her scent on him, and I knew it was her. So instead I took him back to the barn with me, and I gave up Anne.”

Stiles has no choice but to be grateful for this. Sure, it’s not cool to just let someone die, but if he hadn’t let Anne leave, Scott would probably be dead. And as much as Stiles has grown to like Anne, he would still rather have Scott over Anne any day.

“What about Mariah?” Stiles asks.

Derek doesn’t answer him for a moment. When Stiles looks back at his face, he notices with abruption how exhausted Derek looks. Stiles has never noticed it before, but there are deep purple circles under his eyes, and his face looks so much older than it did in the beginning.

“Mariah was at the hand of a lot more murders during the war than you think. Just because she was part of the Alliance doesn’t mean she didn’t kill her fair share of people. What she did during the war was just as bad as what everyone else was doing, but she thinks she did nothing wrong. She thinks everything she did and everyone she killed was for the greater good. But if you knew some of the people she killed for no good reason, I have a feeling you would hate her a lot more than you do, too.”

“Okay, so you don’t like her. But I also heard through the grapevine that she doesn’t like you.”

Derek sighs. “You’re asking too many questions.”

“No, you’re just keeping stuff from me.”

But Derek doesn’t answer. He just stands up and crosses the room and flicks off the lights before going back to his bed and laying down, pulling the covers up to his chest.

Stiles groans and follow suit, though, but he’s not even tired, so he just stares up at the ceiling and imagines that he’s back in his own room, and Scott’s in there with him, and they’re watching shitty MTV comedies on his laptop. He so badly wants to go back to those days, the days where his biggest worry would be trying to get Lydia to notice him at school and doing his homework on time and not losing his homework, more importantly.

But he’s come to terms with the fact that he’s probably not ever going to get that back, so he just sighs once more into the quiet of the room before shutting his eyes and forcing himself to get tired, but he still can’t find it in himself to sleep. Which is weird, considering that, after today’s events, he would think that he’d be more tired than ever.

“Stiles,” Derek’s voice calls softly to him from across the room.

“What?” Stiles asks, feigning exhaustion.

Derek’s quiet for a few seconds, and it’s really weird how he always does that, Stiles thinks. He’ll start the conversation, and then he’ll stop talking for a while, as if he regrets starting it in the first place, or as if he doesn’t know what to say.

“Goodnight,” he ends up saying, and that’s all he says. Just that one word. “Goodnight.”

Stiles blinks once and turns onto his side to look at Derek in the darkness, but Derek is on his side, his back to Stiles, so he can’t see his face.

Stiles considers him for a moment before rolling back over onto his back. He wonders whether Derek wants him to say it back or not. And it shouldn’t be that hard to do, just say the one word, but for some reason, it makes everything seem so much more intimate than it needs to be. It makes everything seem so much more personal.

“Goodnight, Derek,” he whispers into the room.

 

-

 

Stiles wakes up the next morning to find Derek sitting cross-legged on his bed, staring down at something rectangular in his hands. He looks as if he only woke up a few minutes ago, the telltale sign of tiredness still lingering in his eyes, and he’s still stifling yawns. There’s a slight crease to his brows, as if what he’s looking at isn’t satisfying, but Stiles doesn’t think much of it.

Stiles yawns once and sits up, stretching his arms out behind him. He stands and moves to the kitchen to grab something to eat, but right as Stiles opens the refrigerator, Derek’s asking him, “Is this your mom?”

Stiles turns abruptly to face Derek, but Derek still isn’t looking at him, is still staring at the rectangular object in his hands, which Stiles realizes now is the picture he brought with him, the picture of himself and his mom and his dad at Disneyworld. And, _god_ , he can already feel the prickle of tears in his eyes, and it’s so _stupid_ , how she died so long ago yet he can still cry at just the mention of her.

“What the fuck?” he shouts, slamming the door to the refrigerator shut and making his way over to Derek. He snatches the picture out of his hand quickly and tosses it gently onto the couch so that the glass doesn’t break. “Why the hell are you taking my stuff?”

“I was bored,” Derek says simply. “And it was just sitting out there in the open. I figured if you didn’t want me looking at it, it would be hidden or something.”

Stiles clenches his jaw because, okay, Derek’s kind of got a point there. It’s not like he ever told Derek to not look at the picture, and it wasn’t hidden, so why would Derek think there was anything wrong with looking at it? But still, it was something Stiles had brought with him for himself and himself only. It’s not something he wanted Derek to see.

“Whatever,” Stiles manages, turning away from Derek so that he can’t see the wetness in his eyes. He just doesn’t want Derek to see him get this upset over something so stupid.

“Are you crying?” Derek asks, and damn those werewolf senses (Stiles blames it on the werewolf senses, but it’s not really too hard to figure out).

“No,” Stiles denies anyway, even though the way his voice shakes slightly gives it away that, yes, he is holding back tears. Because more than ever, Stiles wishes his mom could be here now. His mom would always give him the best advice on how to handle Derek, and she would tell him all these inspirational things that sounds like they came straight out of a Hallmark card, and she would always know what to do. But she’s not here, and Derek blatantly reminding him of this fact makes him not only upset but also angry.

“Stiles, I’m sorry,” Derek says, and it’s the most sincere Stiles has ever heard Derek speak, but he still can’t find it in himself to believe it.

“It doesn’t matter,” Stiles bites out, moving back into the kitchen and opening the fridge again.

“If I knew you were going to get upset–”

“Derek, it _doesn’t matter_!” Stiles shouts at him, facing him again, and he knows his cheeks are flushed and his eyes are wet, but he doesn’t care anymore. “It’s not like you would get mad at me if I took something of yours, right? But God forbid I get mad at you for taking something of mine, right?”

“I didn’t know,” Derek says, and now his voice sounds angry, too.

“Everything in this goddamn house is always about you, you know that? Every single thing! It always has to be done _your_ way! Stiles, sleep on the couch. Stiles, don’t touch my stuff. Stiles, don’t talk to me. But as soon as it benefits you, the rules don’t apply, right? You just do whatever you want without thinking about other people, Derek! Did you ever stop for a second and think that maybe I don’t want to talk to you, of all people, about my mom?”

“I didn’t know you were still so upset about it,” Derek argues, voice loud but not nearly as loud as Stiles’s.

“What if I asked you about _your_ mom, huh? Or your dad or Laura or Cora? I have enough common courtesy to not ask you about those kinds of things because I know how much it fucking hurts to be reminded of things like that! God, and I thought we were friends, Derek!”

And Stiles definitely hadn’t meant to let that last part slip. In fact, he didn’t even know he really thought they were friends. But now that he’s said it, he realizes with a start that it’s true. He’s started to think that Derek and himself have found some semblance of friendship in this fucked up system where they’ve been forced together. And that’s definitely a lot scarier than it should be, and Stiles doesn’t really want to negate what he said because now that he’s realized that it’s true, Derek will know that he’s lying. But he also doesn’t want to keep yelling because he doesn’t know how to follow that. So he just turns back to the fridge and pulls out all the ingredients to make pancakes and begins to do that instead, grateful that facing the stovetop means having his back to Derek.

And he’s almost sure he imagines it when Derek says a few minutes later, “We are.”

Stiles frowns and turns to look at Derek, who’s sitting on the edge of his bed and staring down at the floor. “What?” he asks in surprise.

“Friends,” Derek clarifies, raising his gaze to look Stiles in the eyes, and Stiles is shocked to find that his eyes are surprisingly vulnerable in a way that Stiles didn’t think Derek Hale was capable of. “We are friends.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE 7/19/13: I've previously gotten into an accident, and so I've been in the hospital for the past few days, which is why my next update is coming slowly. I'm going into surgery soon, and this hospital has shit wifi, and I'm not sure how much longer I'll be in here. That being said, the next update will be coming soon; this isn't an abandoned story. It'll probably just have to wait until I get out of the hospital, which will most likely be in a week or so. I'm terribly sorry!


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